That might be true if you live in a cave but when you are working on a team of 6-8 people with a team lead then basically none of that is true and you are forced to follow others' decision and everything is decided for you (instead of you to make decisions) no matter if you like it or not.
Of course some might say but then you have to make compelling arguments to raise your concerns and being heard but that's beyond the point and that's politics that most people (including me) despise. As a software engineer your only choice to make those decisions you mentioned is that you are a manager of some sort or you work completely alone.
And for some reason most developers accept this hierarchical relationship in their daily professional life but still pretend that they are allowed to make decisions by themselves instead of pointing out the implicit forces which rule their daily lives.
And I like to call out this line of thinking because it is pushing this liberal agenda that you are the sole reason for your luck or failure which is not true at all. Not even close to reality.
Actually many thought leaders in our industry for example Uncle Bob anticipate that our industry MUST and/or WILL be regulated (if by self-imposed regulation or external one is again beyond the point) otherwise the whole industry would lose credit. And I fully agree with that.
Not only because of credibility reasons but also because it makes the implicit subordinate relationship that most developers are blissfully unaware of, more explicit.