I found it easier to extend in Product Ownership direction. Resolving use cases with customers (like writing test cases against reference Excel computation, leg

I found it easier to extend in Product Ownership direction. Resolving use cases with customers (like writing test cases against reference Excel computation, legacy SQL dump), filling stories, writing documentation. It results in natural leadership. I don't know your story but I've been tech lead in a team with to many juniors, bad idea. I've struggled to give them agency, they were arguing about placing spaces and braces, there were cases of designing not so great API, mutating frameworks private variables and defending as "own vision". Promising juniors left, I've left. Finding good team is hard. It is often ruined by management.