For Profit Transition Role?

Hi,

My whole "tech" career consists of my roles with my current employer, a faith based nonprofit that, comparatively, has a large constituency and ecosystem compared to their counterparts. So there's the church, faith-based schools, and a few different recreational affiliates that operate as their own multi million dollar organizations but were funded and largely utilized by the congregation. I've been here almost 7 years and my TC is a bit shy of 90k as a director managing a small team.

All our databases are vendor-hosted, so my experience with database management is only UI based - no working experience with managing DB's on servers, security management, disaster recovery, etc. My org has our IT department as a separate entity from mine, and IT takes care of local network and server maintenance as well as helpdesk functions. My dept aligns closer to like a data services or analytics department, establishing reporting and data entry and governance protocols.

I spend most of my time documenting protocols, managing data at the record level within the DBMS UI, and communicating service alerts or release notes from the vendor. I try to adhere to project management practices for implementations or new procedure rollouts, but no one here is interested in following a plan to get things done in general so my dept's like the one little island of control in a sea of chaotic inefficiency.

My undergrad from a decade ago is in DBA, and I'll be starting my Master's for CIS next year. Mostly because I want some formal mark of my investment to study in this field, that's personally important for me. If it helps me get a better paying job that's cool, but I'm expecting my work or pet projects/portfolio to qualify me more than a degree would.

At this point I think I'm only staying with my employer because they are PSLF certified. I won't be eligible for forgiveness for about 6 years. I'm trying to build enough education and experience between now and then to feel comfortable jumping to a for-profit at that time. I'm not super money motivated but I know I need to earn more for retirement, savings, home ownership, etc. A role with TC between 130 - 170k would probably suit me fine if I enjoy the work and the culture. I would prefer to stay in non profit I just don't think there will be a lot of roles available in the salary range I stated that will let me do the kind of work I want to do (fleshed out a bit below).

The thing is, after a couple years off and on of research, I'm not sure what kind of role I should be looking for.

I probably have the most work experience as a project manager, but that's been mostly begging people for time and to do things. I'm sure that's not all project management is, but this chasing people aspect is tiresome, so I don't think pm is for me as a full time/primary responsibility.

I like cleaning and cataloguing data a lot, and I think I could be happy doing data engineering full time. I hop in and out of training in Python and SQL, and I think I can research specific/popular platforms/technologies to keep building skill on. But if current DE's would share their read of what platforms I should be looking at now I'd really appreciate any suggestions.

I don't ever want to be a formal manager of people again. I only do it now because it came with a promotion and I definitely hate it.

I like having the ear of senior management and being able to advise them of what's feasible and what's not and have that advice actually factor into decision making.....I'm not sure if a data engineer would get that voice. So if I wanted that plus the data engineering as day to day work....should I be looking at data engineering roles or something adjacent?

I also like discussing and implementing data governance concepts and strategies but would be unhappy if I didn't have hands on data cleaning work to do half of my time.

Would appreciate any suggestions on target role, salary expectation just so I don't lowball myself), or upskill trajectories....