I have no reliable recipe, and I suspect you may not find one, but anecdote:
- Military for 12 years.
- Programmed some software that become widely adopted in the community in a "bro-level" fashion.
- Got hired by someone else in the community who started a government contracting company. Have the sort of job responsibilities and salary you describe, with no prior formal experience, but lots of independent programming/software design work.
FlyingAvatar
How many jobs have you actually applied for? Do you not get any response at all? If you've applied for more than 20 jobs or so and have had no response, I would ask folks to review your resume here.
talldayo
Most people take a track where they start at junior engineer and reach mid-senior level through seniority. I don't really know of a more surefire career path to the six-figure positions.