The way it usually works is you get a job doing non-primarily coding stuff at a company that has also has programmers, and then get shifted to a development job when people figure out you can code.
They aren't the same job, regardless for how similiar the titles are.
My point was the skills required in architecting a solution vs testing a given specific solution differ. So, while you can more easily fall/move into a automated testing role, it's harder to do so into a core programming job. The bar for moving into the latter, rightly or not, very much higher.
I've never seen that work for actual software development, but I guess it depends on where you work/what sort of job you do.
I've seen it work for sdets though so who knows.