Every developer eventually faces a choice: keep developing software, or start developing people. Plenty of us never make it consciously. It gets decided by the company you happen to join, the gaps in the team around you, or whatever you found interesting at the time. That's fine — accidents can land you somewhere good. But drifting isn't the same as choosing, and you're the only person who can take hold of it.
My own path
Mine happened by accident. Before I wrote code I was more interested in design, and coding started as a means to an end: a way to build the interfaces I had in my head. I never had much appetite for learning a language in depth for its own sake, only enough of it to make the thing work. Over the years that's covered multiple languages across frontend, backend and cloud, always with the same goal — learn enough to do the job in front of me.
What I actually enjoy is prototyping ideas, working out solutions and architecting systems. Which, looking back, points fairly directly at management. I just didn't spot that until I was already doing it.
Software or people
Choose software and the path usually leads towards specialisation: a language, a platform, a paradigm. You become the person others bring the hard problems to. You'll still collaborate, mentor and influence, but your value sits in your technical skill and how you apply it.
Choose people and you're trading that for team dynamics, planning and clearing the way for others. It doesn't mean leaving tech behind — your technical experience is what makes the guidance worth anything. It does mean success stops being what you built and starts being what your team managed to ship.
Neither is the senior version of the other. What matters is whether the day-to-day work suits you, which might mean stepping away from code entirely or doubling down on it.
The bit worth acting on: don't let the decision happen in the background. Talk to people doing the roles you're curious about. Ask for the responsibility that stretches you in that direction and see whether you actually like carrying it. Try the work before you commit to the title — tech lead, mentor, architect, Head of Engineering, or none of them.
You don't need it all figured out. You do owe yourself a choice you actually made.