I would agree, a lot of DL concepts became much clearer after I worked with tensors enough to be able to manipulate them in my mind. Before that I just sort of just made sure the shapes matched up and hoped for the best. Also, you tend to see a lot of beginner questions/​confusion on DL libraries (Keras especially) about tensor shape mismatches, suggesting that it is quite a common problem area.
I would agree, a lot of DL concepts became much clearer after I worked with tensors enough to be able to manipulate them in my mind. Before that I just sort of just made sure the shapes matched up and hoped for the best. Also, you tend to see a lot of beginner questions/​confusion on DL libraries (Keras especially) about tensor shape mismatches, suggesting that it is quite a common problem area.