Not hating; just geniunely curious. Why did you get into this career if writing code is/was the " most boring use of my time in the entire world"?

Because I like solving these types of problems, I like inventing new things, I like fixing old things, I like the software business and automating things. I like this whole realm and I thought I liked coding until I didn't _have_ to do it anymore as a pre-requisite to doing all those other things.

Writing code was the gatekeeper I had to pay for 15 years and I've never had so much fun as I have in the last 18 months.

Some people like to solve problems, others like to solve puzzles. For a while going into software meant you could solve both, had to solve both.

Agreed, this seems so strange to me. I got into this career specifically because I liked writing code. There's a dozen other career paths, still in IT, that I could have chosen if I wanted to tinker with computers and get paid well but didn't want to write code. I don't understand it.

My guess would be lots of money.