I'd be a bit surprised if a sizable portion of engineers at a public company didn't have at least a rough notion of how their companies make money. It's right there in the quarterly and annual earnings reports. (And while reading SEC filings at a very detailed level is a skill you need to learn, the basics are pretty straightforward.) But maybe a lot of engineers just can't be bothered by any of that stuff. <shrug>
What is almost certainly true is that a lot of engineers as well as people in a lot of other groups can't conceive of why the company needs all those people in digital marketing or finance or partner management or ...
My experience (not specifically with engineers) is that very, very few people read the 10K, 10Q or other public statements of the company they work for.
A friend of mine used to be a management consultant for one of the big firms. On one memorable project she worked with senior executives of a large ($1b + revenue) non-tech company that had retained the consulting firm, to do an operational diagnostic. It became incredibly clear that many of these senior execs had never really read the company's financial statements in any detail, that they did not understand that the company was cash flow negative, and that they did not know that the company's debt load was increasing over time as it financed losses with bond issuances.
At the same time they were spending incredible amounts of money on luxurious office furniture and trappings.
Stories like this were common. Most managers knew their area, but did not learn about the business more broadly. (Could be selection bias with firms that hire management consultants!)
So, kudos to the engineers who read these and have a rough idea of their company's financial position and how the business works. It's not clear that this is the median experience.
It may be the case that those managers had no reason to care about the health of the company as long as they were able to extract personal short term value before it all blew up. I think that applies to most tech company employees over the last 15 years.
And admittedly the company I work for has monthly company meetings including quarterly ones that coincide with earnings. Certainly not everyone attends or watches the recording but they lay out results in a very digestible (and not tailored for external audiences) way.
What is almost certainly true is that a lot of engineers as well as people in a lot of other groups can't conceive of why the company needs all those people in digital marketing or finance or partner management or ...