The benefits are multiple:
- you get paid well. Better than other types of engineering.
- you get to do work that is interesting.
- you can leverage your specific brain. If you have exactly the right brain to write code, you can succeed in a way that will be better than anything else you possibly try to do.
- you get to work on things that are new.
- you are in a position of leverage with your employer that other jobs do not get. There are not typically time clocks for programmers. Your hours are flexible. You don’t get punished for being a few minutes late for work.
- maybe you can work from home. Maybe you can live in a nice place, do work remotely.
- the work is not physically demanding.