pilot shortage and salaries

Lul

Good luck with that. As a former airline pilot who has done the reverse of what you’re talking about and having had many student pilots who did the same thing you describe, I would advise that one make aviation a hobby rent/buy a plane if you can afford it and have fun. Being an airline pilot sucks apart from the actual flying. Shift work, no holidays, hot/ready reserve, and you don’t work 1/2 the month. You may only fly 75 hours a month, but your duty days can be up to 16 hours and are gone from home all the time. It’s not as ideal as it’s made out to be. Plus the training is a significant investment of time and money with no guarantee you’ll like it or be successful. Besides, the training is much longer than in the past to get to an airline. I found that the most successful people began flying (which is a skill and an exercise in making good decisions) from a young age. Those students I had that were changing careers, honestly, we not very good stick and rudder aviators. Some were, but the majority were not. The bottom line: you stand to gain more working in tech and funding your desire to fly as a hobby. I hope that doesn’t come off a negative, just honest feedback from an industry veteran.

If you don't absolutely love flying, don't switch. On the other hand, if you do absolutely love flying, don't switch. Get a little plane and fly for fun.

As someone deeply in love with the industry and passionate about it being my lifelong career, I can say you need to be at a director level (or above, of which there are few positions available at any given airline) or a senior level pilot (which takes well over a decade of investment at not much pay) to make that kind of money in aviation. If a high salary is your main goal, pretty much the last industry to be in is aviation. However, if your passion makes being paid comparatively less for your time and skills completely worth it to you, then - and only then - would a switch be worth it.

If I had programming skills I would do that remotely a contractor while also flying as a career. But I know people that make $250k a year flying to Maui and back 4 times a month. You make more on the long haul aircraft. I’m pretty sure senior captains at Delta can bring home like $300k a year.

Uber is pretty spot-on. I was a Naval Aviator before I career switched and became a SWE. Most of my peers went to the airlines when they got out. My airline industry peers are making ~1/2-1/3 what I'm making with only 2.5 YOE (base, not TC; the TC ratio is even more in my favor), and I live in Raleigh, NC (pretty low COL). Take that as you will. Also, as someone who really, really loves flying... Trust me, you're far better off buying a $60k-70k Citabria and getting quality aerobatic training, or if you're more into the wings-level kind of flying, you can get a used Cessna 172 or one of a dozen other light aircraft for less than that. That said, you can join a quality flying club instead for most of the perks of owning your own plane and much less $$$ outlay. If you don't love it enough to buy a plane, the airline career very likely isn't for you - folks who aren't truly passionate about it find that it generally sucks after a couple months/years, which really sucks to find out when you're ~$80k-100k in debt for training. Also worth noting is that it will take at least ~1.5-2 years for you to get an airline job in the first place, and the airlines are 100% seniority based. The only thing that matters is how long you've been there. You will very likely not see SWE kind of salaries for nearly a decade or so, and that's if you're fairly lucky. I don't mean to discourage you; just trying to lay out the facts as I see them. At risk of sounding cliche... Follow your heart! But make sure you really, really think this through. It can be the best decision you ever make, or the most expensive mistake you ever make.