The folks on this site act like every programming job is either at a FAANG/MAGMA company, a startup, or not in tech. They are wrong.
If you are willing to look outside the valley (but still in almost any big city or suburb), there are oceans of tech companies that work in like, financial compliance dashboards or healthcare documentation or if you’re OK with it defense contractors. You can make $150-250k easy. Your life will involve waking up, attending a standup on Google Meet, adding an endpoint to a REST API, sending it off to be tested, then around 2 you fix whatever the testers found, send it off again, then clock out once there’s nothing else in your swim lane (possibly before 5).
You won’t get equity, and you won’t have the outlandish salaries people are always talking about on HN, but you’ll also have the freedom to not think about your job outside of work hours. If what you want is to leverage your skills into a comfortable life where you can spend time with your kids, this is the move.
I’ve seen people burn out and try to leave tech for greener pastures, it often doesn’t turn out as well as they expect. In other fields, you’ll be a lot more fungible and you’ll come to realize how much cushion and leverage developers get from being a somewhat scarce resource.