Some of the most successful engineers I know, got there by migrating over to engineering sales. I'm almost convinced if you are a moderately skilled software engineer, are very good looking, very charismatic, and have maybe a spoonful of general business knowledge, you can pretty much name your salary. They'll stick you in a suit, fly you around with the bizdev guys, and you only have to do anything if the client brings their tech guys to talk. You'll occasionally do some coding: write a few demos, maybe integrate your company's software with some other company's workflow, but mostly smile and talk about architecture, frameworks, blah blah blah. Nice work if you can get it. I was too much of a cynic and critic to make it in such a role, and I have the looks of a toad, so I never bothered.