Dave Winer (one of my heroes) has been programming for 37 years. He writes about that in reflective mood:

Some conclusions may be in order.

First, most people don’t program that long. The conventional wisdom is that you “move up” into management long before you’ve been coding for 37 years. Only thing is I don’t see programming as a job, I see it as a creative act. I drew a big circle shortly after I started, and said I was going to fill the circle. So until the circle is full, I still have more to do.