Imo a dev with no ops exp is like a chef who never tastes their own meals.

I think a more apt analogy is a chef who is not waiting tables. Which, by the way, are typically completely different roles in a restaurant.

Your comparison might work better for a dev with no testing experience. Write the code and throw it over the wall. But I fail to see how an application engineer should need to worry about the intricacies of, say, setting up virtual private gateways.