A good manager enables happy programmers. We always need more good managers in the world; there is nothing shameful about choosing to head into management.
Source: am a programmer, not a manager, but am lucky to currently be experiencing an amazing programmer-turned-manager after years of awful managers.
At my last job interview, the "what do you plan on doing 5 years from now?" question came up. After talking up things that interested me that could fill 5 years of time, he asked me about management aspirations. I confessed that I had no personal interest.
He followed with something about how he wished it was "realistic" for himself to stay in non-managerial roles. Apparently, there are a lot of programmers out there that feel some kind of pressure to move into management at some point if they want to stay in the I.T. game.
Maybe some fellow countryman would speak otherwise, but in Portugal if after 40 you are not a manager of some sort, it is like you failed at it.
It is also hard to avoid such situations when quite a few companies use senior developer, technical lead or technical architect as synonyms for team manager. So you only discovered what you really applied to, after being inside.
After a certain age if you want to stay in development it is like dodging bullets.
Source: am a programmer, not a manager, but am lucky to currently be experiencing an amazing programmer-turned-manager after years of awful managers.