[staunch]

I'd say ~$180k is the highest you can expect to get in a job that you (or at least I) would actually want as a non-managing programmer. The jobs that pay significantly more (such as hard core finance) tend to pay a lot more because the work is life-shortening, specialized, and reputation-based.

[notimportant]

That is my greatest fear - going in to on hands management, or full on management. Hard core finance is more my nightmare and I won't even consider that :)