Last Minute Resume
Try for free

Software Engineer resume example

Recruiters for software roles skim for three things: the stack you have actually shipped with, the scale you worked at, and what changed because of your code. This example puts all three in the first half of the page.

Build my software engineer resume with AICheck my resume's ATS score

Free to start. No card needed.

Why this resume works

  • Every bullet starts with a verb and ends with a result, most with a number.
  • The skills a software engineer job post asks for appear in the Skills section and again inside the bullets.
  • A single, standard layout (Modern Professional) that applicant tracking systems read top to bottom.
  • Standard headings (Summary, Work Experience, Education, Skills) so the ATS files each part correctly.

Priya Raman

Software Engineer

priya.raman@email.com | (206) 555-0134 | Seattle, WA | linkedin.com/in/priyaraman | github.com/priyaraman

Professional Summary

Software engineer with 4 years of experience building backend services and web apps in Java, TypeScript and React. Owns features from design doc to production, on systems serving 2 million monthly users. Strong in API design, performance work and code review.

Work Experience

2023 – Present

Software Engineer II

Cartwheel Commerce

  • Rebuilt the checkout pricing service in Java and Spring Boot, cutting p95 latency from 820 ms to 210 ms during sale traffic.
  • Designed the REST and event APIs for split payments, now used by 3 teams and 40% of orders.
  • Moved 14 services to Kubernetes with Helm charts and GitHub Actions, taking deploys from weekly to daily.
  • Mentored 2 junior engineers through their first on-call rotations.

2021 – 2023

Software Engineer

Ledgerly

  • Built the invoicing dashboard in React and TypeScript used by 18,000 small businesses.
  • Wrote a PostgreSQL query layer with caching in Redis that removed 60% of database reads.
  • Raised test coverage on the billing module from 35% to 85% and stopped a run of repeat bugs.

Skills

Languages: Java, TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, SQL

Frameworks: Spring Boot, React, Node.js, Express

Cloud and tools: AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL, Redis, Kafka, Git, GitHub Actions

Education

2017 – 2021Seattle, WA

BS, Computer Science

University of Washington

Projects

2022

Open-source rate limiter

Go, Redis | github.com/priyaraman/bucket

Token-bucket rate limiter library with 600 GitHub stars, used in production by two startups.

Certificates

AWS Certified Developer – Associate, Amazon Web Services

2023

Example software engineer resume · Modern Professional template · made-up person

Software Engineer resume summary examples

Two or three lines at the top: your years of experience, your strongest skills, and the result you are known for.

This example

Software engineer with 4 years of experience building backend services and web apps in Java, TypeScript and React. Owns features from design doc to production, on systems serving 2 million monthly users. Strong in API design, performance work and code review.

Entry level

Computer science graduate with internship experience building REST APIs in Node.js and a React front end used by 3,000 students. Comfortable with Git, SQL and writing tests, and looking for a backend or full-stack role on a team that ships often.

Experienced

Senior software engineer with 8 years of experience designing distributed systems in Java and Go. Led the move from a monolith to 30 services handling 50,000 requests per second, and mentors engineers on system design and code quality.

Write your own with the free summary generator →

Software Engineer resume bullet points

Use them as a pattern, not a copy: swap in your own numbers. If you don't have a number, describe the before and after.

  • Cut API p95 latency from 820 ms to 210 ms by adding caching and rewriting the slowest database queries.

  • Designed and shipped a payments API now used by 3 internal teams and 40% of all orders.

  • Migrated 14 services to Kubernetes, moving releases from weekly to daily with zero downtime.

  • Reduced cloud costs by $4,000 a month by right-sizing instances and removing idle resources.

  • Raised unit test coverage from 35% to 85%, which cut production bugs in the module by half.

  • Built a feature-flag system that let product teams launch to 5% of users before a full release.

  • Led the incident review for a 40-minute outage and shipped the 3 fixes that stopped it recurring.

  • Reviewed 300+ pull requests a year and wrote the team's code review guidelines.

Turn your own duties into bullets with the free bullet point generator →

Skills and ATS keywords for a software engineer resume

Skills that often appear in software engineer job posts. Add only the ones you really have, in the same words the post uses, and check every job post for its own.

  • Java
  • Python
  • JavaScript
  • TypeScript
  • React
  • Node.js
  • Spring Boot
  • REST APIs
  • Microservices
  • SQL
  • PostgreSQL
  • AWS
  • Docker
  • Kubernetes
  • CI/CD
  • Git
  • Unit testing
  • System design
  • Agile
  • Code review
Software Engineer cover letter example →See which keywords your resume is missing for a real job →

How to write a software engineer resume

  1. 01

    Lead with the stack the job asks for

    Put your languages and frameworks in a Skills section near the top, in the same words the job post uses. If it says "Node.js", write "Node.js", not just "JavaScript". ATS keyword searches are literal.

  2. 02

    Show scale and results, not duties

    "Worked on the checkout service" says nothing. "Cut checkout latency 75% during sale traffic" shows skill. Users, requests per second, latency, cost and release frequency are numbers every engineering manager understands.

  3. 03

    Link to code you are proud of

    Add your GitHub or portfolio in the header. One well-documented project beats twenty half-finished repos, so pin your best work.

  4. 04

    Keep it to one page under 10 years

    Cut coursework, old internships and every tool you used once. A focused page is easier to scan in the 30 seconds a recruiter gives it.

Software Engineer resume, section by section

Header with GitHub

Priya's header adds her GitHub next to phone, email, city and LinkedIn. Link it only if it has something worth opening, like her rate limiter library; a profile of forks and half-finished tutorials does more harm than having no link.

Summary

Her summary gives years, languages and frameworks (Java, TypeScript, React), the scope she works at (features from design doc to production, 2 million monthly users) and three strengths. Swap the order of the stack to match each job: lead with Java for a backend role and React for a frontend-heavy one.

Work experience

Each bullet names the technology, the change and the size of it: p95 latency from 820 ms to 210 ms during sale traffic; split-payment APIs used by 3 teams and 40% of orders; 14 services on Kubernetes with daily deploys. The mentoring line shows she's ready for a senior role without claiming the title.

Projects

One open-source project with 600 stars and production users says more than five tutorial apps. If you list a project, give it a line on what it does and one number: users, stars, downloads or companies using it.

Skills

Grouped into languages, frameworks, and cloud and tools, so a recruiter can match the job's stack in seconds. List only what you'd be comfortable being interviewed on; a long list invites questions about the weakest item.

Education and certifications

One line for the degree, one for each certification. A cloud certification like AWS Developer helps in roles that run on that cloud, but your bullets carry far more weight.

Entry-level to senior software engineer resume bullet points

Junior engineer (0–2 years)

  • Built 9 REST endpoints in Spring Boot for the order-tracking service, with unit and integration tests.
  • Fixed 70 bugs in my first year, including 3 that caused failed payments.
  • Added structured logs and a dashboard that cut time to diagnose production issues from about 2 hours to 20 minutes.
  • Wrote the design doc and code for bulk CSV upload, now used by 1,500 sellers a month.

Mid-level engineer (3–5 years)

  • Moved search from a MySQL table to Elasticsearch, cutting p99 search time from 1.4 s to 180 ms.
  • Designed idempotent webhooks that ended duplicate order events for 2 partner integrations.
  • Own on-call for 4 services; incidents fell from 9 a month to 2 after fixing the top causes.
  • Review around 15 pull requests a week and wrote the team's API style guide.

Senior / staff engineer (6+ years)

  • Set the technical direction for a 12-engineer payments team across 9 services.
  • Led the split of a monolith into 6 services over 18 months with no customer-facing downtime.
  • Cut infrastructure cost by $140,000 a year by rightsizing clusters and moving cold data to object storage.
  • Run the interview loop for backend hires and mentored 5 engineers, 3 since promoted to senior.

Mistakes to avoid on a software engineer resume

  • A skills list with no proof

    Thirty technologies in the skills section and none of them in your bullets reads like keyword stuffing. Mention the key ones inside the work you did with them.

  • Tasks instead of changes

    "Worked on the backend of the checkout" says where you sat, not what you did. Say what you built or fixed and what got faster, cheaper or more reliable.

  • No sense of scale

    A service with 200 users and one with 2 million are different jobs. Add users, requests, data volume or the number of teams that depend on your work.

  • A GitHub link that hurts

    An empty profile or one full of forked tutorials undercuts the resume. Link it when it shows real work; otherwise leave it off.

Key takeaways

  • Put the stack the job asks for first, in your summary and skills.
  • Give every bullet a technology, a change and a number.
  • Show the scale you work at: users, requests or teams.
  • Link code only when it's work you're proud of.

Questions about software engineer resumes

Should a software engineer resume have a summary?
Yes, a short one. Two or three lines with your years of experience, main stack and the kind of systems you build help a recruiter decide quickly whether to read on.
How many projects should I list?
Two or three, and only ones with something to show: users, stars, a live link or a clear technical challenge. With 3+ years of work experience, one project is enough.
Do I need to list every programming language I know?
No. List the ones you could be interviewed on, starting with the ones in the job post. A long list of languages you barely know makes the strong ones harder to see.
Should I include LeetCode or hackathon results?
For new grads and early-career roles, a strong contest rating or a hackathon win can help on one line under projects or achievements. After a few years, shipped work matters far more, so give the space to that instead.
How is a resume for a product company different from one for a consulting firm?
Product companies look for ownership, scale and metrics: what you built, for how many users, and what changed. Consulting and IT services firms look for the client domain, technologies and delivery. If you're moving from client work to a product team, rewrite each bullet around the part you owned and its result.
What if my work is under an NDA?
Describe the problem, your part and the scale without the client's name or confidential details: "built a pricing service for a large retailer handling 3 million requests a day". That's normal, and interviewers understand it.

Sources

Duties, pay, education and job outlook for software developers in the US: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook.

Your software engineer resume, written with you.

Tell the AI about your work. It asks for the numbers, writes the bullets, and checks the ATS score as you go.

Start free

More resume examples