By your question, it is an indication that you have passion for this field. You should try early in your career to get as much lab, drilling and field testing experience as possible. Later after licensure you can go into analysis, design and report writing under an experienced engineer.
I will give you two examples & two variables. On one project, I did the soils classification during drilling and then assigned a consolidation test for the lab guy. When it was time to write the report, I looked at the consolidation curve and only saw a 3% strain. Having a firm CH soils and few years of lab experience, I knew somthing was off. It turned out the second test showed 12% strain. Without lab experience, I would not have developed a "feel" for that soil test.
On a second project, we had damp silty sand that was loose to medium dense in the upper 5 feet. On the grading or earthwork specification, we prescribed light earthwork equipment. In the field, the contractor used heavy equipment and initiated pumping. This caused undercut and rock to be used for bridging which in turn doubled the grading estimate. Had I not spent few years watching scrapers and heavy equipment get stuck in Silty sand deposits, I would not have learned that lesson.
The other two variables are the type of projects you firm gets & your off work learning. Projects should include exposure to all types of analysis - slope stability, retaining structures, deep foundations and difficult soils (liquefiable, swelling, loess, etc). About 8 to 12+ hrs a week, you should spend reading case studies, conference proccedings and attending seminars. This should be on your own time and money. Not sure where you are located, but you can go to college libraries to get recent publications and need not spend a fortune accessing newer books and developments.
Geotechlinks, Geotechnical directory and other websites are a great place to get more information. From time to time, you may need to change jobs or even geographical location in order to learn new topics. Good luck.