How do I earn a seat where the real decisions get made?

You can think at the strategic level now. The frustration is that thinking it and being in the room where it counts are two different things, and the door to that room has not opened yet. That gap is real and common. Skill earns you the right to the seat, but it does not hand it to you; someone has to see the skill and trust it first. The seat usually comes from making your strategic thinking visible to the people who hold the decisions, in their language. Do not wait to be invited to speak strategy. Frame your work in terms of the business outcomes leaders care about, and build a real relationship with one or two of them. When they start to see you as someone who thinks about their problems, not just the design, the invitation follows. Pick one leader whose decisions affect your work and find a way to be useful to their goals this quarter. Show, in their terms, that you think beyond the pixels. Seats at that table are given to people who already act like they belong there. Start acting like it before the invitation comes, and it comes sooner.