I'm hardly an expert but from my experience if all you are coming to the table with are standard programming skills then I think the positions in that salary ra

I'm hardly an expert but from my experience if all you are coming to the table with are standard programming skills then I think the positions in that salary range are few and far between. You will need to be bringing something special to the table, I would think. But what do you want out of life? I'm currently looking at halving my salary (which wasn't as high as yours) to enter a field that I just think is fascinating and important to humanity (genetics / biotech). In the end it's more important to me that I can look back on life and think that I did something useful / important than just made a crap load of money.