I'm in an interesting quandary. I've been doing test automation using QTP for about 1.5 years, and am in the slow process of switching to a developer role in my same company. I also begin my Master's in CS this fall. An old friend is trying to recruit me for a Sr. Test Automation position that could potentially pay me $23k more for the exact same thing I do now. But obviously I would defer moving to development. The new company is much more technical overall (I would be moving from financial services to industrial automation, and they have MANY more software dev roles available.

I know traditionally QA type jobs carry an odd "danger" tag, but test automation is really a different beast.

Does anyone have any experience moving from test automation to development? Does the QA stigma exist? The extra $$ would be nice, but not at the expense of my career. I should note that my Master's will be on Systems/parallel programming, so one thought is that I'll get automatic consideraton for development upon completing my Master's. I also work 6hrs/wk doing game development with a friend.