Is it essential though? I'm a competent software developer developer, and programming rarely saves the day for me. In fact, I'd probably have fewer problems if I stopped coding outside of work.
Depends what you do, I guess. I'd argue that there are uses in most jobs, but you have to know how to code AND know the domain well. There are few jobs that I've had that couldn't have benefited from knowing a little scripting or some basic unix tooling. At least they would have been a little more fun.
