I've been using Linux for 25 years, awk is a more recent addition to my arsenal, but rapidly becoming more and more useful.

For example, awk is extremely helpful if you want to rearrange columns, do math on columns, essentially do things that would take multiple lines of bash with cut and read.

I usually use something like awk '{print $2}' to get a bit of some output

Ex: list processes, grep for the line I want, then awk out the chunk I want from that line (the pid):

ps aux | grep myprogram | awk '{print $2}'

I both love and hate awk -- on the one hand, it provides the same/similar functionality of similar tools (sed, grep, cut, etc); but it is a bit of a bear and can be pretty slow.

If you need more "complex" tasks done what would be cumbersome with the rest of the standard tooling, and performance is a non-issue, awk/gawk can probably get it done.

Though, I too am trying to use it as little as possible in scripts. I think multiple subshells/pipes is still better than awk in some cases. Syntax also leaves a lot to be desired...

I use awk instead of cut cause I can remember the syntax better.

ps aux | grep zoom | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill -9