Deployment isn't a very glamorous thing for most programmers... but if one person spends a little bit of time on it every single developer and operations person will thank you.
With every single long-term project that I've worked on, I've always tried to be the one to occasionally switch to working on better unit tests and better continuous integration. I've also often been the one to bootstrap manual deployment processes into steps required for automating (and then automating them).
Also, note that deployment starts at development. Having your full suite of unit tests and linters run on every single PR is critical for ensuring that your project doesn't fall victim to extremely trivial bugs that could have been automatically caught. Sure, it might seem like extra work, but you're actually saving yourself time.
With every single long-term project that I've worked on, I've always tried to be the one to occasionally switch to working on better unit tests and better continuous integration. I've also often been the one to bootstrap manual deployment processes into steps required for automating (and then automating them).
Also, note that deployment starts at development. Having your full suite of unit tests and linters run on every single PR is critical for ensuring that your project doesn't fall victim to extremely trivial bugs that could have been automatically caught. Sure, it might seem like extra work, but you're actually saving yourself time.