.. it means that the guy should know when to do it - and when not to. And he should be reachable, and should know enough to realize he's screwed up, and to fix it. Sadly, this is rather less common than simply knowing how to throw filters in - that's the easy part. Kind of like the difference between a mining engineer triggering carefully shaped and placed demolition charges, and Wile E Coyote lighting the fuse on a bundle of dynamite.
There are a lot of people in this industry who claim to be engineers but they're not. In fact, I am of the opinion that there is no such thing as an Internet network engineer because there are no published best practices for Internet network engineering and there is no formal oversight for Internet network engineering. This is the fundamental problem in Internet operations today. Too many cowboys and Wile E Coyotes. --Michael Dillon P.S. Has anyone else had a look at the PITAC report to the President on Cyber Security? http://www.itrd.gov/pitac/