You worked on a team project and want to add it to your portfolio. The project had several contributors, so a list of everything the product does will not tell a reader what you built.
Start with the shared goal, then describe your own part and give the reader something they can inspect.
A small example
Imagine a team built an online shop. One developer worked on the delivery-address form. If that was your actual contribution, you could write:
Our team built an online shop. I added a check for an empty delivery address and a message explaining what the customer needs to enter. The screenshot shows the message after submitting an empty form.
This is a fictional example. Adapt the structure to work you actually did. If someone else designed the interaction or reviewed the change, you can say so. Teamwork is useful context.
Choose evidence you can share
A public pull request can show a specific change and the discussion around it. A screenshot or demo can show the result. Check that the link is accessible to your reader and that you have permission to share it.
For confidential projects, describe an approved, anonymized version of the problem or create a separate example. Avoid publishing customer information or private code. A sample is useful, but label it as a sample rather than presenting it as production evidence.
What helps you explain your contribution when several people worked on the same feature?
Top comments (1)
The difference between a weak answer and a strong one here is usually one sentence: the part that was yours. "We built it" tells an interviewer nothing. "I owned the part that kept failing, I changed this decision, and this is what happened next" gives them something they can actually judge.
I would add one habit to your framing: name the trade-off, not just the task. Anyone can list what they worked on. Saying what you gave up to get there, and what you would do differently now, is what shows judgment rather than just participation.
The same gap shows up on the IT and security side. No IT certification is needed to start; what moves someone forward is proof they can handle real work, graded the way a real team would grade it, with a verifiable work record behind it. That is exactly what the simulated shifts at getonthejob.com are built around: real tickets and incidents, graded like a real team, so when someone asks what you handled, you can walk them through your decisions and the outcome instead of describing a team effort in general terms. The free shifts are a good way to feel what that kind of graded work looks like.