Putin recruited and ran spies when he was stationed in East Germany. That seems to be how he was involved in the spook world.
Here’s a WaPo piece from 2000 that offers some background on him:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/russiagov/putin.htm
Yes, he did typical KGB bureaucrat stuff, recruited agents, ran spies, invented cover stories, all apparently pretty basic stuff. No super spy stuff. No exciting John le Carré type stuff.