Working directly with “the business” (such as end users in an SMB) is actually a highly valuable skill for a programmer, because ultimatelly we’re paid to make the software to be used by normal users as part of their business and people who combine programming skills with (proven, genuine) experience in working directly with users and stakeholders in the business side delivering software for their needs, are quite rare.
This is especially valuable in any large company whose core business is not Tech but makes heavy used of Technology and has custom systems serving their business side, such as, for example, investment banks - the user and business oriented programming areas (not just frontend but basically anything that’s tightly coupled to the nature of the business of the company) value “understanding the business” and “figuring out the software that needs to be done to serve user and the business needs” as much or more than technical proeficiency.
(It’s all nice and neat to, say, be a “guru” who came up with his or own programming language, but actual companies whose actual business needs have nothing to do with programming languages, couldn’t care less, though such techie “chops” definitelly impress young and naive techies)
I don’t think “junior level on a team” matters if you have almost a decade experience - in my experience by that point nobody gives a rat’s arse about what you did as a junior unless it’s something you’ve never done since and are trying to leverage in an interview - but having done projects professionally as part of a team does matter a lot, because big projects can’t be done solo in a reasonable amount of time and hiring manager do want people who have proven they can work well as part of a team. Only way I can see to make up for this if you don’t have it is to participate in larger Open Source projects.
Also being self-directed and capable of working without lots of supervision is highly valued: somebody whose input is “there’s this (non-techie) thing we need solving” and whose output is the implementation of the solution is worth his or her weight in gold, not just in the kind of small company which can’t afford dedicated technical managers (to go around supervising the less self-directed kind of dev) but also in larger companies as it saves lots of time and problems all around when a programer can just take ownership of figuring out the details of the problem and delivering the solution.
Maybe you might’ve been ignoring some of your greatest strengths by looking only at the technical side of your experience.