"[...] ultimately pretty simple" you mean if you ignore everything making it hard?
I must admit that this kind of attitude triggers me. I have worked in the energy sector, in engineering (but not IT) heavy companies, and many have this attitude. "its easy to learn programming", "we just need to teach the engineers python" etc etc, and I have seen MOUNTAINS OF SHIT so tall you would faint. It's easy to get tricked, because being both the user and developer at the same time can be such a boost. But the moment there are more users things get hard. The moment the code base gets so large that you can't keep it all in your head, it gets hard.
Software development is easy until its not, and it surprisingly quickly gets to the "it's not" stage. And then you get excel sheets in python.
Some "subject matter experts" make good programmers, but in my experience its not because their background, but because they are smart and have talent for it.
You kind of have to be a rebel to get that knowledge. Most teams don’t want developers talking to customers or spending time understanding the domain beyond their next ticket, and even in that case they’ll get a product managers distilled version. If the industry has courses/exams and a path of its own that’s helpful so you can get the knowledge that way.
I don't think that is the case, or atleast that has not been my experience. Most teams would be happy if you do these, but not affecting the next deliverable. So if you are willing or can spend extra hours that becomes manageable, but one can't always be in a position to spend more hours working (priorities, family etc.). What would be best is team encourages your involvement and factors that in deciding the target date of your deliverables. This would win for both since knowing domain makes one to understand the problem better and program beetter.
Writing individual programs is often quite simple, but developing software products is often not. It's a combination of taste, hard-won experience, a feel for the organizational dynamics at play, and of course, raw programming ability. Note that the things on the list, other than programming, are often pretty complicated!
