Your Job Is To Solve Problems, Not Write Code
Given that you are a software engineer it might be easy to think that your job is to write code.
No.
Your job is to solve problems. Understanding software is one of the skills you use when solving problems.
In a lot of situations, by the time a problem gets to you writing code might be the best way to solve a problem. A new feature needs to be built. A bug needs fixing. But sometimes if you take the time to understand the problem, not just the ask, you can solve the problem in other ways.
Maybe rather than building a custom internal tool for data, you can show people how to use off the shelf tools to query for what they need. Maybe the API doesn't need a new endpoint, it just needs better documentation. Maybe the problem isn't as important as previously thought and you don't need to do anything.
Remember, all the code you write has to be maintained, so think about the best way to solve the problem before just building what is asked.