sure, as far as "job responsibilities" go, I agree that keeping the site running trumps answering support emails. That's the primary job of an engineer or ops guy/gal. But hopefully urgent events like this aren't the hour-to-hour norm for a company.

To answer the first half of your question: as an engineer myself, I am personally very invested in good customer service skills. Admittedly, doing a startup (vs. being part of a much larger organization) probably drives my customer interest quite a bit. However, even from an engineering perspective the customer interaction has definitely helped to focus my work on solving real (often recurring) customer pain points and requests, and communicating those back to the customer in a way they understand.

anybody out there with similar experiences as an engineer doing both customer support and development?