As both a Rust user and a CS grad, I can confirm both that papers still make my eyes glaze over and that thankfully you don't need to understand the type system to use Rust effectively. :)

Personally I'm thankful for my CS background, but you also need experience using various tools to round out your knowledge. To put it another way: real-world experience teaches you how to solve problems, while academic experience teaches you that hard problems can be solved.