8.1.2. Understand Your Team
Succeeding in your internship starts with understanding your team and how it operates.
Asking the right questions early on will give you clarity about your role and how your work fits into the bigger picture. Here are some key questions to find answers to:
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What is the team’s goal?: What is your team working toward, and how does it contribute to the company’s broader objectives?
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What projects are currently in progress?: What are the team’s priorities, and what are the timelines for these projects?
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What does the team own?: Which systems, features, or responsibilities fall under your team’s domain?
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Who are the key stakeholders?: Who relies on your team’s work or has input into your projects?
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Which teams does ours collaborate with?: What other teams does your team regularly work with, and why?
Your manager or mentor can help you answer these questions. Take notes and revisit them as you gain more context throughout your internship.
Create 1:1s With Each Team Member​
Once you’ve completed the initial onboarding process and have begun embedding yourself within your team, it’s a great idea to schedule one-on-one (1:1) meetings with each team member and stakeholder you’ll be working closely with.
This is a great way to introduce yourself and get a better idea of what everyone on your team actually does and who to direct questions to on the team. Maybe one team member wrote a specific module or subsystem of the codebase while another is the resident frontend expert.
Most importantly, properly introducing yourself will make it easier to reach out to them when you will inevitable have a question or have to ask for a favor.
The longer you delay, the harder it can feel to introduce youself properly. It’s easy to fall into the mindset that the “window has passed,” but early 1:1s are crucial for building strong connections and gaining the context you need to work effectively.