I've been thinking a lot about what kind of work I really enjoy. What is the ideal version of my profession, for me?

I believe it is what I will call the (IAM) "Architect-Engineer":

• I enjoy the work of an IAM Architect: designing solutions; potificating on what, exactly, is an identity; particpating in standards development work, and then helping to shepard those standards into the real world.
• At the same time, I really enjoy hands-on technical work. I want to not just understand IAM technologies, but to see them working on the wire: Using the browser's dev tools; writing code to talk to APIs and to transform data; testing IAM systems to see how they really work, and if how they really work aligns with how the specs say they should work.