You never know where such things will lead, either. I did reverse-engineering as a hobby for years because it was a personal interest, then eventually switched careers to information security partly because of that background.

No one is ever likely to make a living reverse-engineering 30-year-old ROM-flashing utilities, just like no one is likely to make a living figuring out how to convert early-2000s console game data to standard formats, but that kind of hobby project builds skills that are uncommon and useful in certain lines of work.