All that said, I still do enjoy programming and work on a number of cool projects for myself. I've started to wonder if I should do something else for a living and relegate programming a hobby I can still enjoy on the side.
There are plenty of stories of people going from programmer to some business position, whether that be management, sales, BA, etc., but I'm not really interested in any of that stuff. In fact, I think I would hate that more than programming. I've been interested in other fields since a kid, programming just won because of accessibility reasons. I've always enjoyed natural sciences (through school, I struggled in math, hated language arts classes, but always excelled in science). I also contemplated a couple going into a other engineering fields as a teen that I've retained an interest in. There are also some IT domains that look interesting (honestly I'd probably be a better network engineer that software engineer), but I don't think I could stomach starting at the bottom of that field. I expect a pay cut if I switch fields, but entry-level IT pays pennies.
I dont think I've ever heard of anyone doing anything like this. Googling only shows people doing the opposite going from X to software development. Everyone wants to be a programmer these days. Maybe it's the money and prestige.
Has anyone made a transition from software to some other technical field?