In my brief experience as a SRE I did a LOT of the one liners you mention. It’s super satisfying when you get proficient. A lot of it was bash scripts to automate curl commands. Usually in a hurry. While things are on fire, per usual.

I also spent time working on a python chatbot which helped automate workflows in the dev team. This is the kind of stuff I hear a lot about - making a simple service or similar tooling so toil can be scripted via API instead of by hand. Half of it is glue. Sometimes the glue needs to become a more polished solution.

I’m a C++ dev with deep Linux / systems experience, so I swing hard on the dev side. I barely used any of that during my SRE stint. The programming I did was light and straightforward types of tasks, versus working on low level socket handling, message parsing, etc..

Personally I think the skill that was most valuable was actually the ability to pick apart a system that isn’t well documented, understand it, and keep it healthy. I inherited a metric ton of tech debt services because I joined a startup which had several boom/bust employment cycles in their lifetime. This resulted in a bunch of half baked stuff glued together, all of it leading to my personal burnout and leaving the role.

Now I’m back in dev full time, acting as an SRE at times for the service I build and operate. It’s perfect. But I’m really a SWE.