[apohn]

I'll bet that if you tracked the career path of CS and Engineering graduates, you'd see the following pattern. Let's assume (this is a bad assumption) the majority go into a technical role (e.g. Software Engineer, Electrical Engineer). After 2-3 years following graduation, you'd see a large percentage of people move from technical roles into semi-hands on roles (e.g. PreSales, Team Lead, Technical Marketing, etc) and then at 5 years, another jump into non-technical roles (Product Manager, People Manager, Sales, Marketing). At 10 years after graduation, I'd be surprised if even 20% of people with STEM degrees are still in a hand-on technical role.

Regarding Physics, I can't even remember how many people I know with advanced degrees in the sciences who are now in management roles in the private sector, or other roles that don't use even 5% of what they learned in their degree. I work for a company in the healthcare sector, I'm still astonished by the number of times I've heard "I have PhD in Physics/Chemistry/Biochemistry and 5+ years of post-doc research, and now I'm have meetings all day my "tools" are Excel/PowerPoint."

>do you know anyone who ended up with a non-coding job with a CS degree?

I know a lot of people who have done this. As you may have surmised from my comments, it's extremely common and people many people do much better from a career and salary perspective since they go into a job area where they can thrive, rather than stay in a coding role they don't like.

[hardcorenobody]

Alright, I think I'll stick it out. Doesn't seem like a bad trajectory. Thanks!