Edit: Mind you for job security and cash generating potential they are can be pretty good - years ago I knew of people on £3000 a day in the UK working on very niche financial systems - but you basically had to have a lot of domain knowledge (financial consolidation) and decent development skills.
But it's really ugly, messy, and you might have to implement 5 corner cases of what the german government has thought of to complicate the lives' of everyone in regards to capital gains taxes in combination with church taxes, in a year in which you got married but one of the two left the church the same year. Oh, and what if you also got a kid that year and moved cities? And during implementation there is another law passed to change stuff?
In other words: So out of the world that noone finds it interesting anymore :D
He got a somewhat wistful look in his eyes, and said (more to himself than to us) he wished he could go back and choose not to do that.
I'll never forget that. He was earning an insane amount of money, working super high-level at one of the largest IT firms in the country.