Assuming you go out into the workforce, and not stay in academia, you essentially have two choices: go into a job for which you code, or go into a job for which you don't.
The coding jobs pay better than the the other jobs, which is why they seem like the obvious, no-brainer choice. But, in their own way, they're a dead-end, golden handcuff situation: you'll likely be toiling away removed from the actual business. Mind, it doesn't mean the work is boring or can't be fulfilling.<p>A job in which you don't code will pay less. (Not because coders are inherently smarter, but because actually training someone to code is costly.) And many of them have quite a lot of boring bits, just as coding does. However, quite a lot of them will teach invaluable business skills. Like picking up the phone and talking to people; like writing RFPs; like seeing what real-world clients value and what they don't; like soaking up domain expertise.<p>The last one is a killer, really. Teaching coding to someone who can't code may be expensive, but it's doable (see coding camps all over). Teaching domain expertise to a newcomer is also expensive, but can't be done unless they actually live the domain. So domain expertise in the long run ends up being more valuable. Again, money wise really very little compares to FAANG salaries, but in terms of career options - as many as you want, and then some.<p>It's also where the most interesting problems lie. Not just interesting, but frankly, quite low-hanging fruit as well.<p>As for starting a business, or being self-employed, if we're honest here, you've not worked in business, you don't know what problems there are to solve, and up until now, throughout your life you've been optimized to clear benchmarks (get good grades, get into good school, get good grades again). I'm not saying you can't do it, but of all the options, it's the one least lending itself to growth.<p>I come from a very similar educational background, and my first job as SWE was my worst working experience. Maybe if it wasn't so bad I would have stuck it out, but then again, I wouldn't have chosen differently if I had to do it all over again. Point being, after that experience, I torched one path and was only left with another. I made less money overall, but I learned a domain, traveled the world for business, got comfortable networking and building relationships, got ever-more flexible working arrangements, and eventually carved out a niche. Twenty years on, many of my former SWE colleagues are either in academia, or tech leads/ICs in a software company.