Internships often provide exposure to individual tasks, but the most valuable learning comes from owning a real problem alongside a cross-functional partner. In this lightning talk, a product management intern and software engineering intern at Red Hat share how collaborating on an end-to-end feature enhanced our internship experience and gave us hands-on exposure to the full software development lifecycle.

Together, we developed an “estimated time saved” feature for Red Hat Developer Hub that makes the value of developer self-service visible and measurable. We will walk through the journey from identifying an adoption challenge through user research to translating insights into product requirements, refining the user experience, implementing the solution, and shipping the feature.

Working across product and engineering allowed us to participate in an industry-standard Agile software development process, including sprint planning, iterative development, feedback, testing, and scope tradeoffs. It also helped us understand one another’s disciplines, navigate ambiguity together, and connect our individual work to a tangible product outcome.

Attendees will leave with practical lessons for creating more impactful internship experiences through cross-team collaboration, real-world ownership, and end-to-end feature development.