Understanding what modern cryptography techniques can do is worthwhile for every developer, because it enables entirely different kinds of system architectures. A good example is the Tahoe-LAFS distributed filesystem: https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/wiki/FAQ

I included links to definitions and further information about all the terms used in that series of blog posts. I'm definitely not an expert on cryptography but I'll be happy to try to answer any questions.