This is good advice for something like finance. But many software companies are out to "disrupt" very broad areas, and unless you intend to stick in one such area, I doubt there is a whole lot of benefit to doing that.
For example, if you are developing software at Uber, there is no "domain" to speak of. Ditto for a search engine at Google. The company pioneered information retrieval in the internet age, so what's the relevant "domain" there?
Of course, if you are writing MCAS software for Boeing, having a good understanding of Control Systems, or Aeronautics (which you can gain by attending nontraditional programs in colleges or universities) will be very helpful. Same thing for something like trading firms (where it's practically formalized and there are programs that turn out quants), accounting firms (e.g., Intuit) etc.
From your examples, it seems that you make a distinction between B2B (with possibly internal clients) and B2C.
The general advice that would still apply to both would be: understand who your client is and what they need in the context in which they evolve, be they consumers in a country you're not familiar with or mechanical engineers you barely know the job of.
- "Hey, I saw a statistic that females are anxious about taking taxis at night in France. Why don't we add a feature to let people share their locations with others?"
- "In London taxi drivers have to pass The Knowledge, a test on roads! Have we considered adding a similar pre-requisite test for drivers in that city?"
- "I noticed a lot of drivers on Reddit have been complaining that the tips aren't viewable on the app, but we have the data. Why don't we add that to the drivers UI?"
Etc... The sources of this information would be user channels like Reddit, taxi-related news sources in countries you operate in, and keeping up to date on legislation. Sure you might not have the ability to make any of these changes yet but if you stay ahead on these factors it's definitely the way to move into a position where you can have that level of impact.
For example, if you are developing software at Uber, there is no "domain" to speak of. Ditto for a search engine at Google. The company pioneered information retrieval in the internet age, so what's the relevant "domain" there?
Of course, if you are writing MCAS software for Boeing, having a good understanding of Control Systems, or Aeronautics (which you can gain by attending nontraditional programs in colleges or universities) will be very helpful. Same thing for something like trading firms (where it's practically formalized and there are programs that turn out quants), accounting firms (e.g., Intuit) etc.