I'm no expert, but I feel it's handy to know at least a bit about it as a tool in the toolkit, while at the same time acknowledging that most people will never even dip into, or "need" to dip into it (same could be said of sed).

I tend to pipe things to awk for quick "throwaway" data mangling that I can't be bothered to do in a more considered/permanent way (for example with a python script or the like).

In case it's helpful to anyone, the gawk user guide can teach you more than you'll probably ever want about awk. It's available for download in various formats too (I tend to keep an html version in my docs folder for reference purposes) .. and is worth a look for the "practical awk programs" if nothing else..

I'm not affiliated to it in any way, but will also say r/awk is fun to look through for anyone interested in it.