After about 3 months of learning react and picking the seniors brain about web dev, they stepped away due to IRL things. So I volunteered to step up as a lead.
I had maybe 3 months of total web dev experience. But stepping up as a lead forced me to learn quicker, and having junior ask me questions helped me learn quicker as well. For example I could always just give them a stack overflow link, but that's no use because they probably did and didn't understand it. So I tried to break it down for them which meant I had to learn the concept to explain it to them.
1. The experience you might get as a IC or an individual contributor will be very valuable as a lead/manager since you might already have had experienced the people/technical problems brought to you from the other side of the table.
2. It is very hard to go down the ladder or it will be a question most often asked later down when you interview elsewhere.
I wish you good luck with what you are doing. Taking initiative to lead takes courage and being selfless.
I’ve been a mentor in some mentorship groups targeted at college students and recent graduates. One of the common misunderstandings is that mentors usually provide sparse but high-value direction, but we’re usually not available for frequent 1:1 tutoring or programming guidance. That needs to come from within your company or from peers working through similar problems.