Your job title/level/rank (“Principal Engineer”, “IC6”, ...) is what you’ve been deemed capable of (usually by doing it). But your role on a particular project is going to depend on what’s needed. Sometimes you’ll be the lead of the whole thing. Or the lead of a piece of it. Or just another contributor.
Some performance management systems are poorly designed to handle scenarios like this, admittedly.
Some performance management systems are poorly designed to handle scenarios like this, admittedly.