I see a stark difference between understanding how it works and doing it in a professional manner.
For instance I probably have a decent understanding of what our CS team deals with, the tools they use, the volume and overall content of the customer feedback and requests that are coming to us. But I don't sit at a CS desk every day for a few hours and process the tickets of the service I'm running.
You should at least be able to step in and do that job, however, if necessary. That's different than that being the most efficient use of your time, but it's something every good developer should be *capable* of doing.
Understanding anything is not binary, and evolves over time. Feeling like you understand something and then having at least some continuous hands-on experience are incomparable levels.
At the end, its just another part of your skillset with the general aim being the best / most experienced engineer to deliver best designed software for customer/company needs. There is no real seniority without being fully-versed in roughly everything that makes software stable and maintainable and delivering it. One cannot be had without the other.
For instance I probably have a decent understanding of what our CS team deals with, the tools they use, the volume and overall content of the customer feedback and requests that are coming to us. But I don't sit at a CS desk every day for a few hours and process the tickets of the service I'm running.
At the end, its just another part of your skillset with the general aim being the best / most experienced engineer to deliver best designed software for customer/company needs. There is no real seniority without being fully-versed in roughly everything that makes software stable and maintainable and delivering it. One cannot be had without the other.