I'd also add that a lot (most?) of the programmers outside of academia that started 20-30-40 years ago have been promoted out of coding jobs - the culture's cha

I'd also add that a lot (most?) of the programmers outside of academia that started 20-30-40 years ago have been promoted out of coding jobs - the culture's changing, slowly, but previously the decent salaries were reserved for management, not programmers, and assuming you want to earn more...