It should be doable by most software engineers. They did teach some basic CCNA course in the university as part of computer science studies and the concepts taught there should help a lot with configuring any router, including RouterOS. It could also be helpful to watch some guides on routing and firewall on Linux, since RouterOS is just Linux with a very specific UI on top.
I dunno. I've worked with linux routers for years and I've had a lot less problems than with mikrotik.
I still like them but it's usually not the networking knowledge that trips people up.