As an ex C++ programmer who did embedded telecom (amongst other things), I've transitioned to web development. It's not really that different. In fact people with embedded skills can do very well because things like memory management and performance optimisation are very important in web development. Often people with actual experience in that area are in short supply.
The main difference on the downside is a plethora of frameworks that often constrain your design badly. Of course, on any large project there is always a way to do things, and it is not always pleasant ;-) So it's not really so different. I also had to learn quite a lot about databases, something that I shied away from in my earlier days. Again, many frameworks try to shield you from database details, but they bugger up the object modelling so badly that you are much better off being quite aware of what is happening under the hood.
On the plus side, code bases are generally very small. We're talking having to maintain small 10's of KLOC (and very often less than 10k code) as opposed to 100's of KLOC. I wouldn't say they are toy problems, but they are definitely on the small to medium size. You can pretty much understand all of how an app works. Frameworks often bring the total code size up to above 100 KLOC (yes, I have spent some time debugging Rails ;-)), but again, it's not something that would scare a seasoned dev.
My main pleasures are being able to work with 100% free software tools from back to front. It's truly awesome to be able to debug and tweak anything I want. For frameworks and libraries, no longer do I have to depend on marginal documentation to see how something works -- I can just read the code. This is a massive plus.
For me, the acceptance of unit testing as a normal development procedure has been wonderful. Not all web devs subscribe to it, and very few do it well, but it is at least a mainstream concept. Also the tools available for TDD are really great. Rspec style tools (including Jasmine) are worth their weight in gold.
I think the biggest surprise for me making the transition was that there is a huge amount of complexity in web development. Yes, there are lots of people who do web development as a kind of paint by numbers, but honestly I've seen those kind of devs everywhere I've gone.
If you are looking for a change, I wouldn't rule web development out.
From industry people I've talked to, browser/rendering engine teams have had success with and like ex game-engine developers, since the fields have a number of similar requirements.
You know, I would. My partner is also a programmer, works in the same city, is the same age as me, and makes $15k more than I do. But then again...I absolutely love what I'm doing. I work on a AAA project that is going to be one of the major releases of 2015/2016 and that millions of people are going to play. The work is great, the people are fantastic...I love it. It's only the pay that is shit. But do I really want to be doing something that I won't enjoy just to have more money? Probably not.
I make 31,200 supporting a few dental offices, I'm about to give my two weeks notice (when my boss shows up) and i'm going up to 41 to do the same thing. That's abysmal man.
That is a very low figure (more than 3x lower than early-career programmers where I work) for what is probably very hard work. I hope you've considered all options.
For example I work in France and I keep approx $36k after all taxes (but still not taking VAT into account, which is 20% on most products). This salary costs around $78k for the company I work for. Approx breakdown: 25k in employer taxes, 12k in employee taxes (the distinction is rather arbitrary, but sometimes the government changes the rate of one or the other...) and then 5k in household income taxes (if you have some capital gains it also goes to income, but actual work is taxed over and over and over... :p )
Also I work full time: 218 days a year (with no fixed number of hours per week, but it is very reasonable). That's more than 6 weeks of paid vacation + a dozen of holiday here and there. And when I was sick for 3 weeks last year, it was not deduced from my vacations (but the sickness indemnity during those 3 weeks were less than my usual rate, maybe 60% but I'm not sure)
I also sometimes work on the side as an independent and on the monetary side the end result is roughly the same: if a client pays me X, at the end I keep approx X/2 and the other X/2 goes to various taxes (but it is better to be salaried, because those X/2 in tax provides you virtually no security as an independent, whereas they do when salaried)
Now to compare anything you'll also have to at least convert in PPP, and also consider what is provided to you (and even to others!) for "free" with your taxes. This is arguably not reducible to a single figure; I would rather make a "little" less if that lets other people have better health care and if that means that nobody will ever ask me a fucking ridiculous amount of money if I need a really expensive medical treatment (not that the French health care system is the best, but I guess it is not that bad compared to some other countries...). Also a lot of social and related services are provided for completely free to the users. And even in areas where housing is expensive you would find it insanely cheap compared to NYC or some places in the silicon valley.
And to finish remember that the value of the Euro has decreased a lot the last few months compared to the USD. That make all the amounts even more difficult to compare: one year ago I would have told you that I keep maybe $47k after all taxes (from an amount in € that was actually a little lower than what i have now...)
Well after taxes I take home ~1300GBP(~2000USD)/month.
The cost of living is higher,but then - I'm in the North East of England, which is comparatively cheap. I do get 25 days of paid holidays + unlimited sick leave. Other companies over here pay a lot more, but then...I love what I'm doing. It's a hard decision man.
