My answer may not be quite as helpful for you, as you said you are a software dev and would probably pick up the more advanced options easier than me.
But for me, I was asking extremely similar questions to you a few months ago (still my only post on Lemmy, lol). I ended up trying unraid, proxmox, and truenas.
I went with unraid and have no regrets. It’s been super easy and I now have the all in one server box I’ve wanted for years.