[Arainach]

>highest performers as the one who know how to program better but it's actually those who know the system better and I just don't wanna step on their toes.

It sounds like you've learned some bad habits/lessons in your career. High performers are able to learn new systems rapidly. If others are slowed by not understanding the code, that's a documentation, architecture, and occasionally tooling problem.

You should absolutely be asking questions of folks with more knowledge of the system and not concerned about "stepping on toes"