>It's definitely not worth an engineer's time to resolve random customer issues, especially as Stripe has grown from ~500 people to ~7000 people
That's true if you assume a constant rate of incidents.
But when engineers are responsible for customer issues, they become aware of problems and can change the product to reduce those incidents.
In services like this one, letting engineers do the customer support is the closest they can get to eating their own dog food.
If incidents are handled by another department then it's more rewarding to implement another bonus-relevant goal than to reduce the number of problems.
That's true if you assume a constant rate of incidents. But when engineers are responsible for customer issues, they become aware of problems and can change the product to reduce those incidents.
In services like this one, letting engineers do the customer support is the closest they can get to eating their own dog food.
If incidents are handled by another department then it's more rewarding to implement another bonus-relevant goal than to reduce the number of problems.