We're all just guessing based on partial evidence, but every time I've mentioned that people should talk up more in meetings, it has had nothing to do with thei

We're all just guessing based on partial evidence, but every time I've mentioned that people should talk up more in meetings, it has had nothing to do with their leadership skills. It's always been as part of a discussion about how they need to try to understand the bigger picture. Being able to describe your designs, and being able to articulate alternate designs, is a very important part of software development. If OP is the kind of dev who gets lost and can't contribute when the discussion becomes abstract, that's an important skill to be lacking. And let's be honest, lots of people with 15 years experience really have 1 year of experience 15 times. It's really hard to guess at the situation based on no evidence, but I can easily see both sides here.