Don’t join a team too quickly. Once you’re on a Kaggle team:
- You cannot choose to leave
- The team leader cannot choose to remove you
Unless you have a very good sense of what exactly your teammates are bringing to the competition, including their:
- Knowledge level
- Time commitment
- Competition strategy
You should not jump in on the inevitable “Looking for a team megathread!” which is always one of the first and busiest threads of a competition.
You cannot collaborate with individuals without them being on your team but the benefit you will gain by publicly collaborating with discussion and code are greater than the benefits you are likely to reap from an ad hoc team.