Ask HN: How important is parallel and concurrent programming?

Currently I'm taking a parallel programming course at school and its required. The course deals with open MP, is this common/useful outside of school? I've had a few internships and it was rare that I ever saw code that dealt with async, waits, sleeping, etc anything related to parallel programming. I'm about to graduate in May and will be working in a role that deals with cloud and Kubernetes and containers. How familiar should I be with parallel programming outside of open MP if any? It seems nowadays instead of spinning up multiple threads, its easier/cheaper? to spin up multiple instances instead.