Resume Tips
Resume Tips for Software Engineers
Engineering resumes are read twice — once by an ATS matching keywords against the job description, and once by an engineer or recruiter scanning for evidence of real scale and ownership. Optimizing for only one of those readers is why strong candidates get filtered out. Here's how to satisfy both.
Quantify scale, not just technology
"Built a microservice in Go" is a task description. "Built a Go microservice handling 4M requests/day, cutting p99 latency from 800ms to 120ms" is evidence. Every project bullet should answer: what scale did this operate at, and what changed because you built it — latency, cost, reliability, or a user-facing metric.
- Weak: "Worked on the payments backend."
- Strong: "Rebuilt the payments retry logic in Go, reducing failed-transaction rate from 2.1% to 0.4% across 1.2M monthly transactions."
Match your stack section to the job description, in order
ATS parsers and recruiter skims both weight the first few skills listed most heavily. Reorder your tech stack section per application so it opens with whatever the job description leads with — if a posting front-loads "React, TypeScript, GraphQL," don't open your resume with a backend language the role barely touches.
- Languages first, then frameworks, then infra/tools
- Only list what you can speak to in a technical interview
- Drop tools you used once years ago unless the JD specifically asks for them
Show ownership, not just contribution
"Contributed to" and "helped build" read as junior hedging even from senior engineers. If you owned a system, say so directly — designed, led, architected, owned. If you were one of several contributors, name your specific slice (the service, the migration, the on-call rotation you ran) rather than the whole project.
What to leave off a technical resume
Skip an "Objective" statement — it wastes prime space that should hold your strongest project bullet instead. Don't list every language you've ever imported; a long, undifferentiated skills list reads as noise, not signal, to both ATS keyword matching and human reviewers.
Personal projects and open source are worth including only if they show something your job history doesn't — scale, a different domain, or leadership (maintaining a project with real users or contributors).
FAQ
Should I include a GitHub or portfolio link?
Yes, if it's active and demonstrates real code quality — a stale or empty GitHub profile is worse than no link at all. For senior roles with strong work history, it's optional; for early-career engineers, it often carries as much weight as the resume itself.
How do I handle a resume with multiple tech stacks across jobs?
Group by role as usual, but let your summary name the stack most relevant to the job you're applying for. Reorder bullets within each role so the most JD-relevant technology appears first, even if it wasn't your primary focus at the time.
Is a one-page resume still expected for engineers?
For under 8-10 years of experience, yes — one page forces prioritization, which is itself a signal. Beyond that, a tight two pages is acceptable, but avoid padding with duplicate bullets across similar roles just to fill space.