If you are just a lower level IC, your influence is small. However if you can climb to higher level 7+ or enter management you will have a lot of control of roadmaps you own. If you're trying to influence organizations you're not in you're also going to have quite limited influence, but participating in dogfooding programs and filing bugs is still more influence than you would have externally.

I do agree that it's not easy even given the correct conditions.