That’s a good thought, but I do want to stay on the technical side for now. Perhaps that would be to my detriment, but I find the actual developing and problem solving so exciting! The company said they needed an in-house invoicing system, and I had a blast designing it, creating it, and finally delivering it this past week.
I guess perhaps you can express your technical and leadership/management skills separately? "mid-level developer, but with prior professional experience in another industry and strong leadership skills" or something. It'll take a bit of work to explain, but I reckon it should be doable. (I have a similar issue with several years of non-professional programming experience I have prior to my first job).
Tech lead.
Not with 2 people, and it's not even clear if they are their line managers and manage them in terms of promotions, raises, hiring and so on.