I'm sure I am in the minority, but I am proud of the fact that I got rich as a programmer and not by being a suit. How did I achieve that? I co-founded a small software company that was acquired by a large tech company. True we didn't pay ourselves much until we started making some good revenue, and it took us 7 years before we were acquired, but ultimately my ownership stake in the company got me more money in the end than if I had been working as an investment banker right out of college. I didn't turn into a manager or director or some suit who forgot his developer roots, I remained pretty much an architect/developer the whole time. I am really proud of that achievement.
But anyway, my salary at the acquiring company was quite good ($135k with bonus, stock, etc.). I checked on glassdoor.com and it looks to be comparable to other developers at the company. I agree with some previous posters that if you want to be treated more than just a code monkey, work for a company that understands what developers bring to the table, that programming is very much a creative art and not at all like a bricklayer. If you work for a company whose core business is far away from tech (off the top of my head I am thinking a manufacturer or an insurance company, etc.) you will probably not be thought of as key and so I would assume your salary would reflect that. Check out salaries for software developers at companies like Cisco, Apple, Google, and Oracle and you will see they are pretty good.
Now you do have to consider the location. These companies are all based in expensive areas (Silicon Valley, east coast areas like NY and Boston) so their salaries will have to be higher just because of that. But still, overall I do believe that tech companies will give better salaries for developers than other companies.
