If you’re looking to take the next step in your software engineering career, there’s no better time than now, especially with many companies releasing salary information thanks to pay transparency laws across the states.
You have the skills and experience to land your next software engineer job, but figuring out how to write a resume is entirely different.
We’ve analyzed countless developer resumes seeing what works and what doesn’t. That’s why we’ve written 24 software engineer resume samples that have helped developers get jobs at top tech companies like Google, Uber, and Twilio.
Whether you’re wondering how to use ChatGPT to write a resume or are already checking your resume for improvements, you’re in the right place to help you get more interviews in 2024!
Why this resume works
- Not every single job makes the cut to become a work experience bullet point. Doing some brief but thorough research into a company and the KPIs they value will make you stand out.
- Always check the job description and the company’s mission statement to determine what you should include in your resume. If you have experience that doesn’t fit into your software engineer resume, but you still want to include, you can try to add some in your software engineer cover letter.
- After selecting specific experience for your bullet points, pay attention to quantifiable metrics that can exemplify that experience.
- Try to include metrics relating to revenue, increased user counts, or increased efficiency. There are numbers there; you just have to find them!
Why this resume works
- In the software life-cycle of “create, maintain, improve, and delete,” a software developer is primarily a creator and maintainer. However, this opens the door to many titles and niches, like “back-end,” “front-end,” and “full-stack.”
- Because of the amount of niche positions, you need to be careful when titling your resume. Always adjust the title on your resume to match the job to which you’re applying.
- When seeking a specific position, customize your software developer resume by including job experience that matches the software engineer job description.
- Even if your work experience is different from the description, you can include some of the necessary skills and keywords. However, if your work experience is vastly different from the job description, you might want to consider applying for a different type of job.
Why this resume works
- For a new grad software engineer resume, capitalize on a past internship and college projects. Yes, you want to come across as someone able to foster tangible outcomes in the real world, not just a new graduate eager to learn the ropes.
- A word of caution: resist the urge to feature just anything in your piece. Instead, strive to unearth duties and wins relevant to the target company and its KPIs. Talk about using Jenkins for integration automation, building custom UIs with Django, optimizing databases with MySQL, and more.
Why this resume works
- Applying for an internship as a student with limited experience can be daunting. That said, you can showcase your knowledge in a particular field by adding some relevant courses from your university to your resume.
- Companies will understand that you’re just starting out in your career, so including technical courses like ‘Computer Organization and Architecture’ in your software engineer intern resume will show them you have a solid understanding of the fundamentals.
Why this resume works
- Use the skills section of your software engineer new grad resume to highlight the technical knowledge and expertise you can bring to the company you’re applying to.
- If you’re a recent grad, employers will understand that you have limited work experience but would like to see some proficiency in the technical aspects of the job. Use the job description to know the company’s requirements and adjust the skills you include in your software engineer resume to align with what the company is looking for.
Why this resume works
- If you’re not sure how to write a resume, it can help to use a resume template so you can easily rearrange or add sections in addition to what’s required.
- Plus, a template lets you easily adjust stylistic elements like color, font type, and layout. Make your resume as unique as you are!
- As an aspiring engineer, you’ve got two main options for showcasing your skillset on your entry-level software engineer resume.
- The first option is to demonstrate your ability to create and maintain new projects that are easily scalable and solve real problems. You can include college projects, personal projects, or even start something new so you have something to add!
- The second option is to show off any internships you’ve gotten. You can treat them just like work experience, but you can include it in your work experience or projects section.
Why this resume works
- While paid work experience acts as excellent evidence of what you’re capable of, your contribution to a relevant personal or academic project will also help showcase your commitment and passion for a task.
- Your time as a developer in a personal endeavor may have involved several responsibilities and accomplishments that make for a worthy addition to your junior software engineer resume.
Why this resume works
- Resume objectives exist to support and enhance your skills if you don’t have much experience. Use your resume’s objective to showcase your skills your eagerness for a specific job (always tailor it for each job application).
- Of course, if you have more than 10 years of experience, use a resume summary instead. Objectives and summaries aren’t too different, but summaries have more achievements and experience.
- Your associate software engineer resume shouldn’t include any fluff, so you need to cut out unnecessary words and experience.
- Personal pronouns like “I,” “me,” and “my” take up space, so cut them out.
- Use active voice and active verbs to make sure your work experience bullet points are as short as possible.
Why this resume works
- Your senior software engineer resume needs to focus on proven work history, achieved KPIs, and your leadership experience.
- Highlighting a lengthy career with multiple software engineering roles is key to getting noticed, especially when you pair it with quantifiable data from various sources.
- It’s common to see a plethora of skills on senior engineer resumes. However, refrain from inundating recruiters with irrelevant skills to the specific role.
- Always check the job description to get an idea of what the employer wants to see. Try to include six to eight skills in your resume skills section to give a wide range of your available skills.
- Focus more on adding technical skills, but you can include a few soft skills to highlight how well-rounded you are.
Why this resume works
- Once you’ve garnered a fair bit of work experience, an effective addition you can make to your experienced software engineer resume is relevant certification.
- For example, take the case of a Certified Software Development Associate (IEEE) certification included in this resume. It’s credible evidence that proves you have a concrete understanding of software design, testing, maintenance, and quality assurance—all of which are integral to any software engineering role.
Why this resume works
- There is no shortcut to nurturing your software engineering skills. Your achievements backed with software skills should do the heavy lifting when hunting for a new job.
- Your mid-level software engineer resume should give prominence to accomplishment metrics that touch on your application tools competencies, process streamlining, project timeline reductions, and ability to utilize resources to meet outcome expectations.
Why this resume works
- How do you manage to lead teams to create better solutions and maintain a solid uptime rate? Make the best first impression on your employer by highlighting your education!
- Your lead software engineer resume will go up a notch once you mention a master’s degree in computer science. It gives more credibility and shows that you’ve professionally learned how to lead other engineers and also keep systems running smoothly.
Why this resume works
- Few other things hold the candle against real numbers when illustrating your wins. Choose otherwise and your staff software engineer resume narrative becomes too bland to draw meaningful attention and secure you a job interview.
- Did your overhauling MYSQL schema indexation expedite data access? Mention time saved in hours per month or week. Can you recount how many technical guides you built or published or how many users benefited from your software programs? Specify the numbers. Dollar-amount savings should also suffice in your metrics.
Why this resume works
- Take a minute to revisit every programming language that you’re proficient in. Even if you think it’ll make a long list, add all of them to your software QA engineer resume.
- Subsequently, choose a template (preferably Elegant) that gives ample spacing in the skills section for you to write down all the things you’re an expert at. Keep things simple by using a good color accent and let loose on all your past work experiences.
Why this resume works
- With the monetary and benefit perks for software engineering roles, you want to present yourself as a terrific achiever. Project deadlines and excellent outcomes are boxes you’ll have to tick before getting the job.
- It is paramount that your director of software engineering resume shows your numbers for managing teams, cutting costs, expediting processes, and properly managing and prioritizing resources to exceed targets and goals.
Why this resume works
- When you’re applying to a more senior-level position, like a software engineering manager, don’t underestimate the value of using quantifiable metrics to highlight the extent of your accomplishments.
- Adding measurable results to your software engineering manager resume will help an employer evaluate the progress and results you’ve brought to companies you’ve previously worked with. This simple addition of observable statistics can go a long way in setting your resume apart from the crowd.
Why this resume works
- When you’re building your resume to apply to a specific position, such as a software engineer at Google, you can drastically boost your chances of getting noticed by possessing an impressive company-specific skillset.
- For instance, adding tools and cloud-based services under the Google Cloud umbrella to your Google software engineer resume shows the company you’re well-versed in multiple development solutions.
Why this resume works
- Adding hobbies to your principal software engineer resume is a nice way to give an employer a complete picture of your capabilities and interests.
- While you may have several hobbies and interests, ensure you include those most relevant to the role you’re applying to. Participating in coding challenges and hackathons shows you’re passionate about software engineering, even outside work hours—something any employer will love to see!
Why this resume works
- Python developers aren’t very common outside the typical confines of the data analyst/scientist or machine learning world. That said, it’s all the more important that your Python developer resume continuously points towards having well-rounded experience.
- That’s why it can be useful to include a projects section. Of course, you want the majority of your resume to focus on work experience, but if you’ve got some unique experience that might fit the software engineer job description, consider adding this optional section.
- Unfortunately, not all technical recruiters are particularly technical, which brings about its own unique challenges. That’s why it can be useful to include some soft skills in your resume’s skill section, so they get more of a feel for your personality and abilities.
- We’d recommend making your web developer skills section about 70 precent technical skills, but you can include soft skills for the rest.
Why this resume works
- In the software life-cycle of “create, maintain, improve, and delete,” a software developer is primarily a creator and maintainer. However, this opens the door to many titles and niches, like “back-end,” “front-end,” and “full-stack.”
- Because of the amount of niche positions, you need to be careful when titling your resume. Always adjust the title on your resume to match the job to which you’re applying.
- When seeking a specific position, customize your software developer resume by including job experience that matches the software engineer job description.
- Even if your work experience is different from the description, you can include some of the necessary skills and keywords. However, if your work experience is vastly different from the job description, you might want to consider applying for a different type of job.
Why this resume works
- Not all full-stack software engineers are created equal. Despite having many similar skills, such as HTML, CSS, MongoDB, and Jest proficiencies, the main differentiation will be in whatever your main programming language is—JavaScript, Python, Go, or other programming languages.
- Include multiple programming languages in your resume skills section to increase your value and better fit the ATS screening criteria.
- Adding specific keywords is a must on your full-stack software engineer resume. But figuring out what keywords employers want can be a struggle.
- Start by reading the software engineer job description and looking for repeated keywords. You can also look at other local software engineer jobs to look for more key phrases to include.
Why this resume works
- When it comes to standing out on your embedded software engineer resume, include relevant hard and soft skills in your resume skills section.
- This will inform recruiters and hiring managers that, in addition to your technical coding skills, you have applicable knowledge of CPU architectures, operating systems, and more. You can also include soft skills related to communication and collaboration to showcase your ability to work with teams.
- If you’ve got at least 10 years of experience, you can utilize a resume summary to really drive home that you’re the solution to your prospective company’s problems.
- This is the perfect place to briefly convey your achievements, your experience, and what you hope to accomplish at your future company. Always tailor it to each job for which you apply!
Why this resume works
- Your software integration engineer resume must be logically organized (just like your code), so it can help to choose a resume template.
- Your layout should have a good “visual voice” that’s as unique as you are, so don’t be afraid to play with colors, font types, and layouts. So long as it’s easy to read, format your resume to match your style!
- When picking what to include in your work experience, choose accomplishments from that exhibit growth within your career.
- For example, did you start working with a team and end up leading a team? That’s an excellent example of scalable growth!
- Highlight versatile skills (like types of tools you’ve used) and scalable achievements to prove that you can improve your future workplace!
Why this resume works
- Your goal with your resume is to prove you’re right for the job, which means you need to demonstrate how your skills have grown over the years.
- Our special resume tip: cut the fluff away from any novice jobs to leave more room for more impressive credentials you got later in your career.
- Demonstrate how your programming skills have evolved or how your interpersonal abilities helped advance your team. And be sure to back your claims with data!
- If your security engineer resume shows a slight shift in job roles, you can use it to your advantage!
- Having a variety of jobs shows that you’re well-rounded with a host of skills you may not have obtained otherwise.
- Show this off in your work experience bullet points with a mix of transferable skills and unique abilities from other positions.
Related resume guides
Writing Your Software Engineer Resume
When you apply for an engineering job at a company, the first person looking at your resume is actually not a person. Companies use something called an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to filter out a majority of applicants for a role based on keyword matching.
If you pass this initial scan, your resume will get reviewed by a non-technical recruiter. Then at long last, the technical hiring manager will look at your resume.
So, how do you write a resume that will get you through all these hoops to get that first interview? That’s what this guide is designed to help you do!
We’ve analyzed numerous resumes from software engineers and to come up with valuable resume tips to get your foot in the door.
Here’s what we’re going to cover in this guide:
- What to put in the vital skills section of your resume.
- How to properly format your resume to appease the ATS filters, including what sections to include or omit.
- How to talk about your work experience and personal projects to convincingly appeal to technical and non-technical audiences.
- How to customize your resume for each job to which you apply (it’s easier than it sounds).
Software engineer skills for resume
The skills section is a vital part of your software engineer resume. This will make or break whether you get through the first phase of the resume review, aka the dreaded ATS scan.
Your resume’s skills section shouldn’t be a laundry list of frameworks and programming languages. Especially don’t try to include what you wouldn’t be comfortable coding; just reading about Java is not enough to have it in your skills section.
The worst thing that can happen is that you claim knowledge of a programming language and then can’t answer basic questions about that language in an interview. It’s much better to have true expertise in one programming language than to claim knowledge of 10 different languages.
Good hiring companies know that quality engineers can learn new frameworks as needed. So, it’s a big red flag if you list every programming language under the sun.
There are a few options for organizing your skills section on your resume. First, you can organize them by your proficiency level. You can use categorizations like “Advanced” vs. “Familiar” or “Expert” vs. “Working Knowledge.”
Skills organized by proficiency
Or you can organize them by the type of skill you’re discussing. So you can separate the programming languages you know, the frameworks, the tools, and the databases you’ve used.
Skills organized by skill type
Finally, you can list the programming languages you know and include the frameworks associated with that language you’ve used. You can also list your years of experience with that language. This is useful for recruiters, but it can take up a lot of space on your resume, so make sure your resume format allows for an extended skills section.
Skills organized by years of experience
Software engineer resume format
Threading the needle of making your resume ATS-readable, HR-readable, and technical-hiring-manager-readable is not an easy task. So, try to quantify your achievements without getting too in the weeds (while also not being too broad).
General formatting tips
The most important resume formatting tip that you should internalize is making your resume one page long, maximum. Recruiters spend, on average, only six seconds reviewing your resume. They’re not going to read a several-page resume.
Here are the quick hits for how to properly format your resume:
- Keep it to one page.
- Avoid long paragraphs of text to make it readable.
- Bullet points should be self-contained, complete ideas.
- Keep your tenses consistent. Refer to old roles and projects in the past and refer to your current position in the present.
- Avoid pronouns like “I” or “we.”
- Check for grammar and spelling errors. Don’t let this be the reason you don’t get the job!
It’s tough to fit all of your projects and work accomplishments on a single page, but remember, you’re more than your resume. Recruiters understand this and know if a resume looks good initially, they can ask more questions in the interview.
Your goal with your resume isn’t just to include your best talking points; it’s also to make the life of the person reviewing it as easy as possible. Make sure you don’t have long paragraphs of text so it’s easier to read. Break up your would-be paragraphs into singular ideas that are more appealing to the reader.
Bad bullet point formatting
Designed and built out the backend for a client application that enabled users to build their own recipe books. Used Angular on the front-end and NodeJS on the back-end. Working closely with product managers, scaled this application to 200,000 users and generated annual revenue of $1.4M. (If you’re still reading this, then well done, because it’s far too long.)
Good bullet point formatting
- Designed and built out the back-end for a client application that enabled users to build recipe books.
- Used Angular on the front-end and NodeJS on the back-end. Working closely with product managers, scaled this application to 200,000 users and generated annual revenue of $1.4M.
Your bullet points should be self-contained, so you don’t need periods after each point. Within your bullet points, make sure your verb tenses are consistent (past tense is preferable).
Also, we’d recommend avoiding singular pronouns, so don’t use “I” or “we.” They waste time and look unprofessional, so don’t include them. For example, instead of saying, “I worked on building the back-end for a project,” you should say, “Worked on building the back-end for a project.” There are plenty of ways to avoid saying “I.”
Lastly, please review all grammar and spelling. Don’t give recruiters or hiring managers an easy excuse for someone to put you into the “no” pile. Too many great software engineers don’t check their resumes and leave typos and punctuation errors.
Contact information and title
Your name should be the first thing on your resume, and it should be listed in a bigger font. Directly underneath it, you should include a title. This title should always be the job for which you’re applying. So, if your current title is “software engineer” and you’re applying for a senior engineering role, your title should be “senior software engineer.” After your title, include your contact information, including:
- City and zip code (you don’t need to give your specific address)
- Email address (make sure it sounds professional and includes your name)
- Telephone number
- LinkedIn profile URL
- GitHub profile URL
- Personal website (if you have one)
And although you know already to review your resume for typos, triple-check your contact section for anything that’s incorrect. We once had a great engineer misspell his email here, and although he was a great fit for the role to which he was applying, the company couldn’t contact him, so he didn’t get an interview!
This may seem like a lot of information to include, but you can make it compact. Here’s a great example:
Education
What you include in the education section of your resume will vary depending on whether you’re applying for an entry-level software engineering role or a more senior role.
Regardless of your seniority, you should always include the school you attended, the year you graduated, and your major. If you had a minor or a specific concentration, include that.
If you’re applying for anything other than an entry-level role, that’s all you should include in your education section. Why? Because real estate is valuable on a resume, and your work experience and projects will convey more about your qualification than your GPA or college courses.
Suppose you’re applying for a software engineering internship or looking for your first full-time role. In that case, your education section will be more expansive to accurately convey your qualifications. Plus, you’ll want to mention relevant courses to the role for which you’re applying. For software engineering roles, this means any classes related to software engineering. Took a databases class? Completed an algorithm design course? You get the idea.
If you want to include your GPA, make sure it’s above a 3.2. Otherwise, leave it out.
Entry-Level Software Engineer Education
VS
Senior Software Engineer Education
Software engineer resume summary
Unless it’s done exceptionally well, we strongly recommend that you don’t include a resume summary or objective on your software engineer resume. Why? Because they rarely, if ever, convey meaningful information to the person reviewing your resume. Let’s break down a typical objective statement:
Sample software engineer resume objective
I have 3+ years of experience, and I’m looking to leverage my Django expertise to work on challenging problems as a Senior Software Engineer.
There isn’t anything new in this objective. Their 3+ years of experienceand Django expertise should be demonstrated in their work experience. There’s no customization for the specific job, and it’s far too short.
Remember, recruiters typically only look at your resume for six seconds. Don’t make them waste precious time on anything that doesn’t demonstrate new information about why you’re a great fit for the role.
Anything unique to your situation or circumstance (for example, you’re undergoing a career change) should be discussed when creating a cover letter. You can elaborate on what you’re looking for in your next role without the constraint of space.
Work experience
Your work experience section is, without a doubt, the most important section on your resume. This is where a resume reviewer spends most of their time and attention. It’s here that they’ll decide whether they want to move you onto the first stage of the interview process. So, this is not the place to be humble. Show off the good work you’ve done.
If you’re a junior developer, this section will be shorter (in favor of a longer “Projects” section). If you have two-plus years of work experience, this should take up the majority of the space on your resume.
So how do you talk about your work experience convincingly? The key is to be specific and quantify the impact of your work whenever possible.
Developers rarely work in complete isolation, especially at larger companies. So you must tease out what you did specifically on each project. If you worked as part of a team to turn a multi-page web app into a single-page app, and you were in charge of re-designing the back-end infrastructure for the new app, talk about that specifically.
Good work experience description
Architected the new back-end in Ruby to change multi-page primary product into a single-page app, resulting in $1.2M in annual incremental revenue.
Bad work experience description
The team changed our primary product from a multi-page app to a single-page app, resulting in $1.2M in annual incremental revenue.
Notice that when talking about your actual work, you want to be specific about your particular role. However, when talking about the project’s impact, you can talk about the overall effect that the team had.
Again, quantify the impact of the projects you worked on whenever possible. Businesses hire engineers to move the company forward, and the best way to demonstrate you can do that is to show you’ve had a measurable impact in your past roles. Rough estimates of impact are okay if you don’t have exact numbers; just be reasonable and logical in your assessments.
Here are some other ways you can try to quantify your work:
- Reduced downtime by X%
- Improved the speed of the application by X%
- Implemented a product feature that improved customer retention by X%
- Improved customer satisfaction (as measured by NPS) by X%
- Built a feature that improved click-through rate by X%
- Scaled a product that successfully handled X concurrent users
- Automated a process that saved X hours of manual labor each week
- Improved a product feature that increased usage by X%
- Worked on a project that led to a cost savings of $X
- Implemented unit tests that improved test coverage by X%
- Fixed a bug that reduced customer complaints by X%
The formula for discussing your work experience is “my specific contribution to a project” + “the overall quantitative impact.” This describes the same work experience, just in different ways.
Let’s look at an example of this in action to see how effective it is.
Good: Specific contribution plus quantitative impact
Bad: Vague description and no quantitative impact
Software engineer resume projects
The size of your projects section on your software engineer resume should be directly tied to your seniority level when applying for a developer job. The more junior your role, the more space you should allocate to your projects.
If you have more than two years of experience, you should only list one project of which you’re especially proud. Most of your resume should be composed of what you did in your previous jobs.
Try to talk about your projects in the same way you would talk about your work experience. The goal of your projects is to demonstrate your technical skills in context. Show how you used a language or framework to build something that satiated your curiosity or solved a problem.
Your projects should give more color to your skills section. While it’s great to say you know Ruby, it’s even better to say how you built the back-end of your movie recommendation engine in Ruby. Anyone can list a skill on their resume, but showing how you used that skill demonstrates even stronger mastery of that skill.
If you worked on substantial coding projects during school, you should include them here. When possible, always include the projects you’ve listed on your resume in your Github profile or on your personal website.
Here’s the format of how you should talk about your projects on your resume:
- Describe the problem you were trying to solve and how you solved it at a high level. In the example above, “Built an Android app to allow party-goers to vote on what song should play next.”
- Next, discuss some technical details in either one or two bullet points.
Again, you’re trying to demonstrate two things to a hiring manager with your projects. First, you want to give context to the skills you list on your resume. Next, you want to show that you can identify a problem and then implement a solution to solve that problem.
Interests & hobbies
If you have a bit of extra space and have a hobby or interest that might interest employers, you should include it. Some companies appreciate personality, so this would be the place to highlight that.
Customize your resume for each job
We know, we know; customizing your resume is tedious. But we have some good news! You don’t have to overhaul your resume for each job to which you apply. You will likely have to change one or two bullet points on your resume for each application.
Read the software engineer job description for the job to which you’re applying. Do any particular projects you’ve worked on or languages you’ve used come to mind when reading it? Those should absolutely be included in the resume you submit for that role.
Now, let’s say you’re applying for the following role:
Clearly, they want an engineer who has experience developing APIs. So, instead of just one bullet talking about my experience building out APIs, you should allocate two to three bullet points to my work.
When customizing your resume for each job you apply for, be sure to expand on the work experience or projects you’ve worked on that are especially relevant to the position at hand.
How to write an effective software developer resume
Here are the major takeaways you should keep in mind when writing a professional resume:
- Keep your resume to one page.
- Proofread your resume multiple times to avoid any grammar or spelling errors.
- If you’re applying for an entry-level role, mention any relevant college courses. Otherwise, don’t let your education section take up a lot of space.
- Unless you tailor it, you don’t need a summary or objective section on your resume.
- Only include skills for which you’d be comfortable being interviewed.
- Always mention your specific contribution and quantify the overall project’s impact on the business.
- If you’re applying for an entry-level role, talk about any personal coding projects you worked on.
Remember, the goal of this resume is to get your foot in the door. Once you get that first phone interview, your skills and personality will surely shine through.
Applying to new jobs can be daunting, but one of the most complex and most confusing parts is now over. You’ve done the research, and you’re ready to write your resume! You can use our free resume builder to start your resume from scratch or a template, and our free resume checker uses AI-powered tips to suggest improvements and resolve errors.
You’ve got the knowledge; now go land your dream job!
