The stressful nature of the work varies dramatically from group to group. I don't tend to work at places that resemble the movies so don't find trading any more or less stressful than any other job. One thing that is different is that in trading you are always aware that 1 bad day can end your job, but I think that's true in most places it's just more explicit in trading.

The pay off is getting to work on interesting technical challenges and those technical challenges can be trivially linked to the success or failure of the group. As far as compensation, I make about the same as what I made when I was writing software for a software company.

I got started by being recruited to join a group, but it isn't some secret society or something. Trading groups are advertising positions like anyone else and they hire at lots of different experience levels.