How important is Domain knowledge vs. Technical knowledge?
- by Mayank
I am working on a Trading and Risk Management application and although from a C# background, I have been asked to work on SSIS packages. Now I can live with that. The pain point is that there is too much emphasis on business understanding. Trading (Energy Trading to be exact) is a HUGE area and understanding every little bit of it is overwhelming. But for the past two months I have been working on understanding the business terms - Mark To Market, Risk Metrics, Positions, PnL, Greeks, Instruments, Book Structure... every little detail (you get the point). Now IMHO, this is the job of a BA. Sure it is very important for developers to understand the business but where do you draw the line?
When I talked to my manager about this, he almost mocked me by saying that anybody can learn a technology in a week. It's the business that's harder. My long term aspiration is to remain on the technical side, probably become an architect (if possible). If I wanted to focus so much on business I would have pursued an MBA!
I want to know if I am wrong or too naive in understanding the business importance or is my frustration justified?
