You get to live in New York City which is unparalleled in the US in terms of urban amenities. The weather can be brutal though.

Or you live in Chicago which is like, still a solid city, but the weather is even worse.

I would disagree that trading firms are more boring than big tech. They are typically much smaller and leaner (even HRT and JS are like sub 2k?), and generally employees have massively more impact and ownership as opposed to being a cog in a 20k developer machine.