Lifeguards start on the stand, not as head guard. Every title you want has an entry-level chair.

Every role you can picture has a bottom rung, and the person at the top of it started there without exception. The sequence is not a formality, because the lower job is where you learn what goes wrong, which is precisely the knowledge the senior one runs on. Skipping it produces people who cannot do their jobs. The ladder is less about patience than about content.

So find out what the first chair is for the thing you want, and apply for that. Then treat it as a place to learn mechanics rather than time to be served. Ask whoever sits above you what they wish they had learned there.