I guess it depends on the employer. A small startup company would probably be pretty impressed with the "I built this whole thing" scenario, because that's wha

I guess it depends on the employer. A small startup company would probably be pretty impressed with the "I built this whole thing" scenario, because that's what you need when you're a small company. But my experience has been that most employers will be more impressed with the second "I helped align the dropdown menu on this one FireFox options window" scenario. The second scenario also gives you a lot of opportunity in a job interview to differentiate yourself from other applicants. You can basically show that, not only are you a hot shot developer, but you know how to work with people, you know how to explain your desired technical direction and convince others of the value of your plan, etc. Those are valuable skills most employers can't get enough of, and they're things they can't easily get from an offshore development house.