That entirely depends on the management structure. I took on extra projects when I first started my career in IT as a help desk tech, and it got me promoted to an engineer level position in a pretty esoteric field in under 2 years.

But I knew the IT director liked to hire from within, and my boss liked to brag to him about the team, so I knew putting in the effort would pay off. I was also basically treating the job as a paid internship.

You just have to be able to read the room, which admittedly can take a bit in larger companies.