As a product engineer at Intercom, the author has learned that shipping software requires finding a balance between speed and safety. Initially, they thought shipping was someone else's concern and focused on building code, but now they understand that shipping is an integral part of their role. The company's infrastructure supports safe deployment, allowing them to ship ambitious changes as small, safe steps, much like surgical precision. This approach has become second nature in the culture, enabling frequent deployments with no fear of breaking production. However, the author has started questioning whether they can trade some safety for speed and has identified potential tradeoffs, such as adding feature flags or performing schema changes that could be done more efficiently during a partial outage. Ultimately, finding this balance requires understanding both engineering and business contexts, making it a challenging but rewarding challenge for engineers.