[charlieflowers]

From what I've seen (and I'm a 20 year programming veteran), the best jobs out there are in your wheelhouse.

Here's why: programming jobs top out at around $140k (higher or lower depending on your city). That is 99th percentile, I would speculate.

But there is a smaller niche of jobs that prefer or require advanced academic degrees that are math-heavy (such as Physics or Mathematics), that use cooler, more powerful, non-mainstream languages (such as Haskell, Lisp and a few others), and that can pay up to even $400k.

(Disclaimer: I don't have one of those jobs -- yet anyway :) And I don't directly know anyone who does. But I've seen indicators that they exist. Mostly it seems in the Financial sector. And I think $400k is way on the top end ... but that's a nicer top than $140k.)

EDIT - I saw lower down that the OP said he's not so much interested in a "Quant" job. Mostly, that's the kind of job I'm talking about. I understand why some consider it boring -- it doesn't involve creating anything life-changing -- but to me it is very interesting because it seems like you'd be working with some of the best functional programmers in the world on some hard problems. And, of course, the money is intriguing.