Go to management and learn to play politics. Sooner or later you'll have to. There will always be someone younger and cheaper that will be good enough for the not so challenging lob you have. You just can't compete with them. Yes, there are places where one can advance much longer on a pure technical path, but there are so few these jobs and places that it's just no realistical if you are not in top 1% both in technical or luck skills.
If you want more money, sooner or later you'll have to "take more responsibility" and "lead the team". While being on the management level just above the programmers, you'll still have some contact with the technical part, but when you progress further, you'll loose it and become the pure bean counter and look at other programmers as resources.
And you will hate that, but you still have this mortgage you have to pay, and to save for your kids colledge, maybe go few times a year on vacation, or you need to do that latest gadget as an impulse buy.
And with the time, you will hate your job, as much as anyone else at that position. You will start to question whether it was the right choice to become software engineer. But it was. You had some ten years when you liked your job and found it both well paid and satisfying, which is much more average person, even with a degree, can realistically hope to have.
/rant
Being in a similar situation, I had to vent a bit. I made my choice to switch to the dark side and go the management route. I know I'll hate it, but that's the reality where I live. I know I could get a few more years as a software engineer in Silicon Valley, but USA is among the last places on earth where I would like to raise my family. So, management, here I come.
If you want more money, sooner or later you'll have to "take more responsibility" and "lead the team". While being on the management level just above the programmers, you'll still have some contact with the technical part, but when you progress further, you'll loose it and become the pure bean counter and look at other programmers as resources.
And you will hate that, but you still have this mortgage you have to pay, and to save for your kids colledge, maybe go few times a year on vacation, or you need to do that latest gadget as an impulse buy.
And with the time, you will hate your job, as much as anyone else at that position. You will start to question whether it was the right choice to become software engineer. But it was. You had some ten years when you liked your job and found it both well paid and satisfying, which is much more average person, even with a degree, can realistically hope to have.
/rant
Being in a similar situation, I had to vent a bit. I made my choice to switch to the dark side and go the management route. I know I'll hate it, but that's the reality where I live. I know I could get a few more years as a software engineer in Silicon Valley, but USA is among the last places on earth where I would like to raise my family. So, management, here I come.