Hiring managers read a software engineer resume looking for three things: what you built, how big it was and what changed because of it. A list of languages tells them very little. A bullet like "cut API response time from 800 ms to 120 ms for 2 million daily requests" tells them a lot.
The example below is for a senior engineer with about seven years of experience. It keeps to one page, puts the most relevant stack in a skills sidebar and leads every bullet with a result. Use it as a starting point, then swap in your own projects and numbers.
Below you'll find summary examples for different levels, the skills to include, bullet points you can adapt and tips from the way recruiters read software engineer resumes.
Two or three sentences at the top of your resume: who you are, your strongest result and what you're looking for. Pick the one closest to your level and make it yours.
Entry-levelComputer science graduate with internship experience building REST APIs in Node.js and a React front end used by 3,000 students. Comfortable with Git, testing and code review, and eager to grow on a backend team.
Mid-levelSoftware engineer with 4 years of experience shipping full-stack features in TypeScript and Python. Owned the checkout flow for an e-commerce site with $40M in yearly sales and cut its error rate by 70%.
SeniorSenior engineer with 8+ years designing distributed systems on AWS. Led a team of 6 through a platform rebuild that lowered hosting costs by 35% and let the company launch in 3 new regions.
Screening software compares your resume with the job ad, so use the same words the employer uses, but only for skills you really have. Put the most relevant ones first.
Show soft skills in your bullet points rather than listing them alone: "trained 6 new hires" proves leadership better than the word itself.
Start with a strong verb, say what you did and end with the result, ideally a number. Adapt these to your own work and never claim results you can't back up.
Replace "worked on the payments service" with what changed: speed, cost, reliability, revenue or users. Recruiters skim, and numbers stop the eye.
Screening software compares your resume with the posting. If the ad says "Go" and "Kubernetes", use those exact words where they are true for you.
A GitHub profile or portfolio helps, but only if it shows real, recent work. Pin your best repositories and write a short README for each.
Most engineers fit on one page. Cut old internships and school projects once you have two or three real jobs to show.
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Contact SupportOne page for most engineers with under 10 years of experience. Senior and staff engineers can use two pages if every line shows relevant impact.
No. List the languages and tools you could use in an interview tomorrow, and put the ones from the job ad first. A long list of half-known tools makes the strong ones harder to see.
It helps if you are early in your career or changing fields. Experienced engineers usually get more from spending that space on work results.
See all resume examples, check yours with the free ATS resume checker, browse resume templates or read how resumes differ by country.
Start from this example or a blank page. Edit it on the page, run the ATS checks as you go and download a clean PDF.
