I've got mixed thoughts on this one. I know that every worker in a given field needs some level of domain-specific knowledge to be successful. If I am a developer in ag, insurance, medicine, ect I'll need to know a thing or two about that industry, but how much?

In my new role my C-level manager wants me to engage more in meetings, understanding the business as a whole, but to a certain degree I'm just not that interested. There are representatives that filter phone calls and answer questions for customers, they need to have a more robust knowledge of the domain, but I don't see my manager asking them to learn tech skills.

I'm hesitant to engage because being technically sound is hard work. It takes a good amount of effort to be proficient at a given stack. Things like building a web api or structuring a database can happen agnostic of the business. All the recruiters that I've talked to hardly (some though) have inquired about business knowledge.

With that said, what's your take? I am not against learning, but I think it almost happens through time, it's not a hard skill where you put in effort and gain it all of a sudden. Domain-level knowledge comes through being in the environment, hearing user complaints, and trying to piece together how the technical aspect fits in the big picture.