There are conflicting stories, but I've heard a few different arguments (I'm not sure how accurate any of them are, though):

  * The vaccine is stronger than a low-viral-dose infection; you wind up with more antibodies and more T/B cell engagement, so theoretically more robust immunity
  * The vaccines might be better or worse than natural infection against the variants; on the one hand your body fought a whole wild virus and so the antibodies aren't restricted to the spike protein, like in the mRNA case, so your body might be less overfit. On the other hand, the vaccines seems to producer a stronger immune response, as stated above, so that might be better if the antibodies still mostly line up?

Honestly, even if I had Covid before, it seems to make sense to get vaccinated anyhow. It's free (man, why aren't all vaccines free?), Your employer is very unlikely to give you a hard time for getting it, or taking some time off for recovering from the common side effects of the second dose - it feels like the potential benefits (stronger immunity) outweigh the very limited risks (basically limited flu symptoms and a possible bruise at the injection site).

As a weird side note, at least among my cohort, the side effects seem to be a really clear marker of who's immune system recognizes the disease. My friends who didn't catch it all reported no problems the first time and symptoms on the second shot. My friends who tested positive reported symptoms from the first shot. I had to start immunosuppression after the first shot, but before the second (TNF Alpha Inhibitor), and the symptoms at the second shot were actually a relief that my immune system hadn't been tamped down too hard...