Good QA people are incredibly hard to find, especially ones that can do automated testing. One of my old managers started at Apple in QA and then transitioned over to being a developer after a year or two. I’ve seen this pattern a number of times. The potential risk is that many organizations won’t allow you to leave QA. That may not be a problem if thats what you want to do. QA can pay quite well if you are doing the right thing.

The way to play this is to go into an organization with a good brand name, work hard, focus on automation as much as possible and if they won’t help you transition over to being a developer leave after two years for a place that will. Having a good brand on your resume will open a lot of doors. Also, if you are going down this road its a good idea to build a portfolio of software on github.

Devops is also a good option to consider. It really depends on what your background is and what skills you bring to the table.