Software engineers play a crucial role in various elements of software development. The programs that you run on your computer? The many apps installed on your phone? Some of the tech inside smartwatches? At some point, a software engineer was needed to finish the product. Even the coding of this website required a software engineer to make.
With technology continuously on the rise, so is the demand for software engineers. The need for them hasn’t declined in a long time. Developers have a bright future in the job market; employment in this field is projected to boost 22% over the next decade.
Because technology is ever-changing, recruiters want to see a willingness to learn and adapt. However, they also want to see your experience with various software programs or skills like HTML/CSS, Python, Java, and more. If you’re transitioning to or from a role like data analytics, many of the skills you learned or used will be useful in your new job.
Continue reading to view examples of effectively written software engineer resumes that will get you your next job.
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A software engineer is a multifaceted professional who is involved in the entire software development life cycle. Software engineers can work for a variety of companies and industries. Software engineers are responsible for gathering requirements from clients, developing software based on these requirements, programming features, testing code, troubleshooting bugs, maintaining software, and much more.
To become a software engineer, you’ll need a bachelor’s degree in computer science or IT. An associate's degree with relevant experience and certifications may also be considered. Hiring managers will be looking for some with technical knowledge and experience in creating code. They may look for someone with prior experience as a test engineer or technical support engineer. Ideal candidates for this role will be knowledgeable in many coding languages, with strong problem solving and project management skills.
There are several coding languages software engineers may use depending on the project at hand. The more coding languages you are fluent in, the more dynamic you will look to hiring managers. You should list off all of the coding languages you are comfortable working with on your resume for this reason.
Often, software engineers are answering to a client who wants a specific outcome. Though it may be challenging to meet client requirements, it’s imperative that software engineers are skilled at taking client requirements and meeting them using problem-solving skills. You should showcase any prior examples where you met difficult or unusual software requirements from clients on your resume.
Software engineers with a few years of experience will want to list a good amount of relevant skills, and explain their application in their experience. This sample provides a list of skills needed for the job. It also talks about how those skills were used to deliver effective results. In your resume, talk about what skills/programs you’ve used and how you benefited the company from using them.
Along with mentioning the job title at the top, this sample lists the job title a few times throughout the whole resume. It also lists certain key terms that are common for this profession. In your resume, try to use keywords that are relevant to the position. This will help your resume pass the ATS during the application process.
If you’re a recent college graduate or completed a Bootcamp, this is the resume template for you. The key here is for you to sell yourself with the skills you’ve learned, projects you’ve completed, and software tools you’ve used. Internship experience, if any, will be useful to highlight as well. This sample lists many activities, projects, and classes that are relevant to the position, and communicate effective use of the knowledge they have.
We understand that you may not have much experience right out of college. That’s why you should list relevant activities you’ve done while in school. This sample does so by listing important courses, projects completed and explaining the different software used.
This sample communicates strong relevant verbs to highlight their experience. Use of words like “developed”, “designed”, and “implemented” all help to show usage of the skills they have. Use action verbs like these in your resume to show you can apply the knowledge you have to real situations.
A senior software engineer is a managerial role who oversees many facts of a company’s software development team. Typically, senior software engineers have many years of experience in software engineering roles and are highly talented programmers. The responsibilities of the senior software engineer include managing mid-level software engineers, creating and spearheading new projects, problem solving high level issues and bugs, guiding junior engineers in coding, and more.
Since this is a senior level role, hiring managers will be looking for a candidate with a mix of experience and knowledge. A bachelor's degree in computer science or IT will be required, though a master’s degree can help you stand out. Moreover, hiring managers will be looking for candidates with several years of experience in relevant roles. Previous experience as a software engineer, IT development manager, or software analyst will be valuable to land this role. Most importantly, candidates for this role must have strong leadership and project management abilities.
For this role, it’s important to showcase your leadership skills alongside technical skills. Your resume should show how you gained more responsibility in previous related roles. Showcasing a progressive journey will tell hiring managers you are ready for the challenge of leasing a software engineering team.
Agile project management frameworks, often known as SCRUM, are popular with software engineers and their teams. This type of management allows teams to plan, structure, and manage work with an emphasis on communication and flexible reprioritization. A senior software engineer may need to use these principles to keep their team on the right track. Gaining a certification in SCRUM can help you stand out for a senior software engineer role.
It takes more than being skilled in different software to excel as a senior software engineer. You also need to convey that you can effectively lead a team that delivers positive results. This sample demonstrates the success they’ve had bringing individual success and managing a team that also succeeds.
Recruiters love to see that your success led to achievement and promotion. If you’ve been promoted, describe that promotion, listing timelines and achievements leading up to it. An example found in this sample is “promoted within 18 months due to strong performance and organizational impact”.
While it is key to list the skills you’re proficient at, you should list which skills you excel at. Did you achieve high marks for something complex? Were you in charge of a project that led to large profits? Elaborate on the skills used to accomplish these feats in your resume.
Software testing is different from the other similar job titles listed. Instead of building software, you’re testing it. This sample explains how they did various quality assurance tasks to find flaws and boost performance. Add your achievements in your experience to show that you know what to specifically look for when testing software.
Because you’ll be testing numerous software to improve results, you need to provide metrics of your results. This sample does this by numerically explaining how much productivity and efficiency were increased.
Experience leading a team is necessary for this role. It’s also great for when you desire to level up within a company. This sample lists how effective team leadership led to satisfactory results. If you’re chasing a promotion, list some of your project management experience throughout your resume.
If you're a software engineer with a few years of experience under your belt, use a template like this one. It's simple, effective at highlighting our work experience, and minimizes the emphasis on the education section (the dates are omitted which is good to prevent ageism, especially if you graduated more than 10 years ago).
The first rule about including a resume summary is that it does not repeat accomplishments mentioned elsewhere on the resume. This resume stresses new software engineering and leadership skills right at the top of the resume, and includes an award too. If you include a summary, try to include a mix of both technical accomplishments (e.g. projects you developed or led), as well as career-related accomplishments (e.g. being promoted).
Each bullet point starts with an action verb that stresses the skills relevant to the role. For example, action verbs like "Led", "Spearheaded", or "Launched" emphasize leadership.
This is an entry-level position. Tasks assigned to you may include coding, testing apps and patches, debugging, etc. While you may not have extensive software engineer experience, recruiters will expect to see that you are qualified as a software engineer. You can prove this by listing relevant certifications, tools, and degrees. Keep in mind that as an intern you will likely not be paid or may be paid a minimal amount.
Show recruiters that you will be an asset to the software engineering team by including the wide range of tasks that you have had experience completing.
You may not be able to impress recruiters with your experience, but you can impress them by having an extensive tools list. So keep learning new relevant software and programs to add to your list. It’ll put you above your competitors and show recruiters your dedication to the industry.
As the name indicates, this position calls for an applicant with extensive experience as a software engineer. Your tasks may include developing new software or apps, coding, creating patches, testing software, etc. As a senior in the department, you may also be put in charge of a team of more junior engineers. Managerial skills will also need to be shown if this is the case.
Because you have had extensive and lengthy experience in the field, you may forget to update your tools section to incorporate new software, languages, and programs that have been developed. Remember to keep updating your tools list to reflect current industry standards.
This is a senior position so show recruiters that you would be a good team leader within the department. Mention if you have led teams before, the size of the teams you have led, and what success your teams have had under your leadership.
A junior software engineer might be new to the industry or has had minimal experience. You will work under a senior software engineer or manager and will be given tasks like coding, testing, and fixing bugs, among others. Recruiters strongly prefer to see an educational background in software engineering or a similar field and expect you to be experienced using industry-standard tools.
Your skills list can be used to impress recruiters where your experience section may not. Here you can list all software and languages you are skilled in under the tools section, and list the tasks you can complete. Make sure you keep updating this list.
Recruiters will want to see a progression in your career up to this point. Showing promotions in your career indicates to recruiters that you are an exemplary employee that previous employers have felt was deserving of a promotion.
This position is the highest ranking software engineer position and there is usually only one principal software engineer in a company. In this position, you will oversee the entire software engineering department and so may find yourself spending more time managing and leading teams and projects, rather than doing the software engineering yourself. Regardless, recruiters will need to see that you are an expert at software engineering and that you have had a long and successful career.
Recruiters will want to know if your leadership style fits in with the company’s ethos and culture. If you have a specific style, be sure to list it. This applicant uses Agile methodology to lead.
If you speak any extra languages, be sure to include them. You may find it useful when applying to an international or multicultural company.
This position is also sometimes called a junior software engineer position. You may not have extensive experience coming into this role but you should have a strong software engineering educational background and skill set. You will be working under a senior software engineer or a principal software engineer.
All companies and recruiters are impressed by decreases in costs and increases in productivity, output, profit, and efficiency. Use metrics to show where your work has led to success in these areas.
Because you might not have a lot of experience, proving your skills may be the main way to impress recruiters. A way to prove your skills and put you above your competitors is to get certification in industry-standard software, especially new software.
A software QA (Quality Assurance) engineer tests software to discover any points of weakness or defects. To do this you must be able to design test plans, carry out the tests, and properly report any bugs or defects you may come across. This position requires you to be thorough and creative when designing and enacting test plans.
QA testers are tasked with finding anything that stops an app or software from not operating at its most efficient. If your testing led to an increase in response time or a decrease in launch time, this will be particularly impressive to recruiters. So include these successes with metrics of just how successful you were.
Show recruiters that your work stood out and earned you recognition in previous positions. It is an easy way to indicate your skill level and to present you as the best amongst your peers.
A lead software engineer is tasked with developing, maintaining, testing and evaluating software. You may be assigned a team to manage and lead, and may also work directly with clients. Communication skills are therefore paramount. You also need to have an extensive background as a software engineer and an extensive skills list that at least covers industry standards. Take a look at this strong lead software engineer resume sample.
Tell recruiters the size of the teams you have led and what impressive progress your team made under your leadership. They need to trust that not only are you a good software engineer but that you can effectively lead a team of software engineers.
An easy way to indicate your level of expertise is to use software engineering keywords. It shows a good understanding of the industry. An assimilation of its keywords into your everyday communication can only come from extensive experience.
A software architect is a software engineer in charge of designing software systems and programs. You will also be responsible for troubleshooting problems and finding software solutions. You need to have a strong software development background and a strong skill set. Take a look at this strong resume sample.
Focus your skill section on the skills most fundamental to your software architect tasks. This applicant has included skills like ‘integration’ and ‘software architectural design’.
Show recruiters that you are exceptionally skilled and successful by showing promotions in your career. It will also show recruiters your dedication to your profession. This applicant started as a programmer and moved their way up to a software architect position.
Software architects make high-level decisions for the software development process. They identify the project’s requirements and create an actionable plan to develop them. This includes designing the structure needed for the software and tools the team will use. That’s why you should highlight skills in your resume, such as systems design and databases.
As a software architect, you will be responsible for supervising the entire software development process, so you need to work with a system that promotes productivity, such as Agile. Most employers might look for candidates with knowledge of Agile principles, so it’s important to mention this in your resume.
As a software architect, you may have to coordinate with both the development and operations teams, so some DevOps skills might be relevant for this position. DevOps practices will help you automate and integrate processes for the successful completion of the project.
To get your resume noticed, it needs to list skills that make you look like you’d be successful in the role. It’s equally important to talk about how you used these skills to succeed.
If you want your resume to be seen, thoroughly read through the job description. Find keywords and hard skills in the description that you can use in your resume. Doing so will get your resume past ATS and in the hands of hiring managers. Here is a list of skills and keywords we’ve analyzed from job descriptions; use these to make your resume powerful.
This word cloud highlights the important keywords that appear on Software Engineer job descriptions and resumes. The bigger the word, the more frequently it appears on job postings, and the more 'important' it is.
Software engineering is an analytics-heavy profession. It’s going to involve many percentages, projects, and the use of different software. Hard skills are necessary to excel in this job. But software engineers need to be proficient at teamwork or team management. To succeed in a company project, you’ll need to gather all of the info necessary to get the job done.
Recruiters want to see your resume communicate that you can use relevant skills for projects, and for helping others reach a common goal.
To make your resume stand out against the competition, follow our suggestions:
The use of weak action verbs will hurt the overall strength of your resume. You don’t want to use generic verbs. You want to use ones that are complementary to the software skills you’ve used.
Try not to overuse one action verb; variety helps keep your resume unique.
If you’re not sure which action verbs to use, here’s a list of action verbs that are useful for software engineers.
For more related action verbs, visit Software Engineering Action Verbs.
For a full list of effective resume action verbs, visit Resume Action Verbs.
If you're a senior-level employee, or you're changing careers to become a Software Engineer, it's useful to add a paragraph at the top of your resume highlighting your most impressive accomplishments. This is called a resume summary.
Here's an example of a summary that can be used on a Software Engineer resume.
A resume summary is a totally optional section, and in most cases, it's better to leave it out of your resume than include it. For example, if you're a student or mid-level hire, you should not include a summary, and instead use the space to add to your work experience.
To learn how to write an effective resume summary for your Software Engineer resume, or figure out if you need one, please read Resume Summary Examples for Job Seekers: When To Include One.
You should use bullet points to describe your achievements in your Software Engineer resume. Here are sample bullet points to help you get started:
Designed and implemented 50+ E2E tests using Selenium & Protractor, simulating each user group's actions
Analyzed impact and effectiveness of in-app UI changes on customer retention; identified features of customer behavior and recommended additional menu modifications [R, MySQL, Chart JS]
Developed web scraping program in Python to help the firm download public data, including over 10,000 company descriptions and stock quotes, enriching internal data and increasing research efficiency by over 50%
Designed and implemented an automated system for processing employee timesheets, eliminating the need for manual handwritten timesheets and resulted in a 10/hr per week time saving
Led code review sessions with peers to present and analyze system designs; recommendations reduced defect creation rate by 35%
For more sample bullet points and details on how to write effective bullet points, see our articles on resume bullet points, how to quantify your resume and resume accomplishments.
