[albertopv]

In Italy if you want a decent salary after 40 you have to move to a manager position. I truly like coding, but recent organizations changes lead to a change of role for, leading a team of 8 I have no more time to code. I'd like coding also because it's the easy part of the job for me, but a 15% pay-cut is huge when you are making, e.g., less than 40k/year, which average for a programmer in Italy.

[jmclnx]

Well that was in the late 70s and 80s. I was just starting out and back then many programming jobs (IT) did not pay that much. Well maybe did not pay that much at the company I was at :)

But within a few years I was making more and more as salaries for programming started to skyrocket. But to be honest, even if it didn't, I would have stuck with it.

The people who remained in my old job (manf), they were outsourced as the decade went on :( By the early 90s, all that manufacturing work was gone in my area.