Software engineer resume example
A software engineer resume is read twice: first by a recruiter looking for your stack and level, then by an engineer looking for what you actually built. Lead with the systems you worked on and what changed because of your work, and keep the tools in plain sight.
Example software engineer resume
The person and employers below are made up, and the figures are only there to show how a result reads. Use your own facts and numbers.
Alex Rivera
Backend engineer, 6 years
Summary
Backend engineer with six years of experience building payment and order services in Go and PostgreSQL. Led the move of a monolith to services at a mid-size retailer and care most about reliability and clear ownership.
Experience
Senior Software Engineer, Brightwell Commerce2022 to Present
- Led the split of the checkout monolith into four services, cutting deploy time from 45 minutes to 8.
- Designed an idempotent payment retry flow that removed double charges after network failures.
- Reduced p95 order API latency from 900 ms to 240 ms by fixing slow queries and adding caching.
- Mentored three engineers and ran the on-call rotation for a team of eight.
Software Engineer, Harbor Labs2019 to 2022
- Built the inventory sync service that keeps 40 warehouses in step, in Go and Kafka.
- Added integration tests that caught regressions before release and halved production incidents.
Skills
- Languages
- Go, Python, TypeScript, SQL
- Systems
- PostgreSQL, Kafka, Redis, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS
Education
BSc Computer Science, State University, 2019
Skills to include
Languages
- The two or three you use most
- SQL if you write it
Systems
- Databases and queues you have run
- Cloud platform and containers
- CI and testing tools
Practices
- Code review
- On-call
- System design
What to do
- Name the system, not just the task. "Built the checkout service" tells a reader more than "wrote backend code".
- Put the result of the work in the bullet: a faster query, a shorter deploy, fewer incidents. Use real figures only.
- List the stack where you used it, in the bullets, as well as in the skills section.
- Link your GitHub only if what is on it supports your resume.
What to avoid
- A skills list of thirty tools. Readers assume you know a few well, and a long list makes them doubt all of it.
- Describing duties ("responsible for the API") instead of what you changed.
- Leaving out team size and scope, which is how a reader judges your level.
A template for this role
Developer is a good fit for a software engineer resume. See the template.
Common questions
How long should a software engineer resume be?
One page up to about five years of experience, and one or two pages after that. Cut older and less relevant roles before you shrink the text.
Should I list every programming language?
List the ones you would be comfortable being interviewed on. A short, honest list is stronger than a long one.
Do I need personal projects?
Not if you have strong work experience. They help most when you are early in your career or changing direction.
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