How to Write a Great Software Engineer Resume

Start with the Basics

Think of your resume like clean, well-documented code: readable, consistent, and not trying to be clever for the sake of it. Use a simple, professional font; keep spacing and headings uniform; and skip graphics that don't add value. Aim for one page if you're early in your career, two pages if you've got years of impact to show. If your resume looks like an airport departure board, it's time to refactor.

Personal Information

Put the essentials at the top: your full name, phone number, and a professional email (firstname.lastname@ is timeless; dev.ninja.2009@ is best left in 2009). Add links to your LinkedIn and GitHub if they actually show activity or projects you're proud of.

Skip the profile photo. It doesn't help the content, can introduce bias, and takes up space where your achievements should live.

Professional Summary

Write a short, punchy paragraph that acts like your elevator pitch. Think of it as a commit message for your career: concise, specific, and useful. Focus on the value you create, not just the tools you've touched.

Try a structure like: role + years + focus area + standout impact + key stack.

Work Experience

List roles in reverse-chronological order. Lead with outcomes, not just responsibilities. Use action verbs, quantify impact, and give enough context to make the numbers meaningful. If it helps, follow the STAR-ish flow: situation, task, action, result—then trim the situation so the results shine.

Great examples:

• Optimized database queries, reducing page load times by 40% and cutting infra costs by 15%.
• Led a team of 5 developers; shipped on-time for 4 consecutive quarters and mentored two engineers to promotion.
• Re-architected a monolith into 6 services, improving deploy frequency from weekly to daily with near-zero rollback.

Avoid vague bullets like "worked on APIs." Instead: "Designed and shipped a payment API used by 8 partners, processing 12k req/min with 99.98% availability."

Skills

Group skills by category to make scanning easy: Languages, Frameworks, Infra, Data, Testing, Cloud, and so on. Put the things you want to be hired for first. No need for star ratings or progress bars—let your experience do the talking.

If a skill is critical to the job, show it in context elsewhere: "Deployed on AWS (ECS, RDS, CloudWatch) to support 2M MAUs."

Education

List your degree, school, and graduation year. If you're self-taught or switched tracks, highlight relevant certs or courses (briefly). Projects beat transcripts: if your capstone or thesis is impressive, summarize the impact in one line.

Recent grads can swap the order: Education first, then Experience. After a couple of years, Experience should lead.

Additional Sections

Got space? Add sections that make you memorable: open source, speaking, hackathons, volunteer work, or selected side projects. Keep each item purpose-driven.

Stand-out examples:

• Volunteered as a coding mentor for high school students; 3 mentees shipped their first web apps.
• Built a personal finance app with 1,000+ downloads; implemented budgeting rules and bank-sync via Plaid.

Hobbies can humanize you—just keep them brief and neutral: "Trail running, espresso, mechanical keyboards." If it starts a friendly conversation in an interview, it's doing its job.

Leverage AI Tools

Modern AI helpers—like LinkedIn Resume Builder or Grammarly—can tighten wording, surface missing keywords, and align your resume to a specific job description. Treat them like linting: great for consistency and completeness, but you still own the logic.

• Paste a target JD and your resume to surface gaps (skills, acronyms, tools).
• Ask for punchier verbs and more measurable phrasing.
• Watch for hallucinations—never claim skills or metrics you can't defend.

Proofread and Spell-Check

Typos happen. They shouldn't happen here. Read it aloud, print to PDF, and scan for inconsistent spacing, punctuation, and tense. Run a spell-check, then ask a friend or colleague for a five-minute skim. Fresh eyes catch sneaky bugs.

Tools like Grammarly help, but your judgment is the final review.

Summary: Make It Effortless to Say “Yes”

• Recruiters have very little time to review each application. Make your resume easy to scan: clear headings, tight bullets, quantified outcomes, and consistent formatting.
• Keep multiple targeted versions of your CV/resume for different roles or levels (e.g., backend, frontend, SRE; IC vs. lead). Maintain a master doc, then tailor and mirror relevant keywords from the job description.
• Pair each version with a concise cover letter that matches the resume’s design (typography, spacing, header). In 3–5 sentences, explain why you’re a strong fit for that specific role.
• Sweat the details: clean PDF export, descriptive filename (Firstname-Lastname-Role-YYYY.pdf), working links, accessible font sizes, consistent tense and punctuation. These small touches signal engineering rigor.
• Keep building your CV by learning and shipping—projects, open source, talks, certifications—and refresh your resume quarterly with measurable results.
• Make it fun: choose projects that interest you and let your enthusiasm show in the outcomes you highlight.

Good luck—and don't give up. Competition is fierce, but opportunity favors those who show up and stay ready.

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Looking for your next engineering opportunity? If you're ready to put these resume tips into practice, we'd love to hear from you. Three Tech Consulting connects talented developers with exciting remote projects at innovative companies. Whether you're seeking your next challenge or exploring new opportunities, check out our developer portal or browse our open positions to see what might be a great fit for your skills and career goals.