Actually, you do end up needing a degree of domain-specific knowledge. Do you not think that programmers of medical software don't pick up a ton of medical know

Actually, you do end up needing a degree of domain-specific knowledge. Do you not think that programmers of medical software don't pick up a ton of medical knowledge while they're working? And that people who are programmers who were, say, pre-med or bio students or whatever wouldn't have an edge? As someone who happens to work in a science/bioinformatics environment with no education on the topic, I can definitely say that I make decisions based on the domain (what I've learned since joining) and the behaviors of our end-users, scientists. When programmers lack domain knowledge, they're likely to make bad assumptions that will hurt them later. Of course you have to know intended use when you're writing software, it can help you design it properly. A very simple hypothetical: Designing a database to efficiently receive some data set. What if Etsy's users aren't interested in that data? And they care more about something else, which would merit designing it differently? Maybe having a female voice to bring that up would be helpful. Obviously, it's purely conjecture, but I think it's a reasonable scenario.