Hm, I'm in NL as well and made the switch 15 years ago, compared to what I made writing software I regret not doing it much earlier. Note that 'finance' is a pretty wide area, I would suggest to see if you can work your way into some VC fund at the associate level with that background.

Thanks. That's certainly worth looking into; I switched to freelancing a decade ago and am now at the ceiling as an Engineering Lead and despite still being very effective as a hands-on engineer (coding for 30 years does that) am far more effective in a more strategic role.

I have friends who work in the M&A world (doing due diligence, C-level advise etc) both here in NL (you'll probably know them) and in the US/CA (in identity/credentials), guess I should have a chat with them :-)

But first I'm going to spend a few months doing something good - seeing if we can actually fix interoperability in healthcare in the EU. Lots of interesting things happening in that space ;-)