Today is my last day as a PM intern at Cloudflare. If we’re close, you’ve probably heard me ramble about my work with Bots, sneakers, etc. In short, I’ve had an amazing summer. As I close the day off, I wanted to share some notes on my experience for aspiring PM interns

(1/16)

Firstly, I wouldn’t have had this internship without @judyc and @sgisasi who pulled strings to make sure I could work from Norway. Cloudflare also stepped up and expanded their intern class post-Covid and internship cancellations. Thankful to be part of this org!

(2/16)

So, why Cloudflare? I often tell people that I grew up on the internet. It was a powerful tool when growing up in the suburbs of Oslo, granting access to people and opportunities. I knew I wanted to be part of a company that works to improve it.

(3/16)

Cloudflare is also one of few companies that employ junior PMs. The responsibility, trust and agency I received here has contributed to immense growth. I now understand what people mean when they say “optimize for team and impact, not companies or roles”.

(4/16)

During my time here, I worked on 3 projects:

1. Internal X platform for the Bot Management product.
2. Improving the UI for an internal dashboard.
3. Researching how we could improve our Bots provisioning system.

Will hopefully share more about these projects soon

(5/16)

As a PM intern, I received open-ended challenges internal customers (ex. Account Managers or Engineers) were experiencing. The goal was to understand why they were experiencing this challenge, if it’s “worth solving” and collaborating with engineers to propose solutions.

(6/16)

My biggest strength was probably active communication, understanding motivations and proposing solutions. My biggest weakness was documenting rigorously and precisely when scope and complexity changed or increased. It wasn’t easy when there are moving parts.

(7/16)

I was lucky to have a supportive manager allowing me to somewhat experiment, active mentors and a good relationship with the engineering team. Being proactive in the beginning of my internship to meet team members casually made it easier when complexity of projects grew.

(8/16)

On that note: Relationships are more important than I originally imagined. When I started, I made sure to say hi to team members individually. This was (1) fun, but (2) helped me understand what values and priorities team members have and how they prefer to be included.

(9/16)

On a more tangible note, some lessons to my future self and aspiring PM interns:

Over-communicating is always better than second guessing. I often bugged team members with repetitive questions. It’s more important than feeling unclear about aspects of a project.

(10/16)

When writing docs and specs, who are you writing for? Ask people how they prefer it instead of writing away for the sake of writing. You may uncover unexpected wishes, asks, etc.

(11/16)

Taking a step back during meetings is an important skill. Meetings often spiral into specific discussions that aren’t related to your goals. Everyone will appreciate if you take a step back and clarify what the specific meeting should focus on vs. separate discussions.

(12/16)

Writing requirements across multiple teams requires you to be clear on the context of your own product. Other teams have no idea what you’re doing.

(13/16)

Don’t let a dependency equate to a project being blocked. Investigate further — is it really a constraint or a dependency?

Shadow the PMs you wish to be like. Being around more talented/experienced PMs taught me a lot!

(14/16)

These lessons are very meta and perhaps make more sense once you experience it yourself. Though, I hope these reflections can help some of y’all looking to enter product as an undergrad :)

(15/16)

If you’re interested in Product Management and/or considering an internship at Cloudflare next summer, please don’t hesitate to reach out — to me or @nancycaoo, @davidtsong, @bensol_ or @annikagarbers if want to hear more

(16/16)

One last note to my mentor @dinasaur_404, who was the first person to include me 200% in everything she did — from customer calls to pointing me to people I should meet. You’re THE best

And the last tweet that got lost in crappy Norwegian cabin internet: Another big thank you to @sgisasi, my manager, who gave me exciting projects to work on, trusted my judgement and shared his lessons/best practices throughout my internship. Thank you for believing in me!