I've had more than one half-serious conversation with SVPs here that every staff/architect level engineer should have to spend at least 6 months working on the engineering team that directly interacts with the largest customers.

I flat out guarantee they'll come away with a wildly different perspective of the things that need done, and the ways their service operates.

Ideally I'd want them to do a rotation in customer support so they get the small customer perspective too, and at least learn what kind of paper cuts they're inflicting on customers.