Software Engineer Resume Template
The Best Resume for Software Engineers
Your resume should be just as clean as your code (well, as clean as Claude's code, but you're definitely great at checking it before commit). Try the resume format that's guaranteed to work, from executive tech recruiters who have spent years hiring premier talent at the largest, fastest-growing, most innovative, and most well-backed companies in the world.
4.9★
Average rating
7M+
Resumes created
10 sec
To impress a screener
👩
JESSICA LANG
💻 Software Developer
🌟 Skills
JavaScript★★★★★
React★★★★☆
Python★★★☆☆
Leadership★★★★★
Teamwork★★★★★
📬 Contact
📱 (123) 456-7890
🔗 linkedin.com/jessica
🌐 jessica-codes.dev
📍 Philadelphia, PA
🗣️ Languages
🇺🇸 English — Native
🇫🇷 French — Basic
🏆 Awards
🥇 Employee of Month
🎖️ Hackathon Winner
Jessica Lang
Passionate & Innovative Software Developer | Problem Solver | Team Player | Change Maker
Results-driven software professional with a demonstrated history of delivering impactful solutions. Passionate about leveraging synergistic technologies to drive transformational organizational success and create meaningful user experiences.
💼 Professional Experience
⚡ Software Developer
🏢 Some Tech Company · Philadelphia, PA · Jan 2021–Present
Collaborated cross-functionally with diverse stakeholders to deliver synergistic solutions
Leveraged cutting-edge best practices and agile methodologies to improve performance
Interfaced proactively with clients to ensure seamless transformational outcomes
🛠️ Technical Skills
🎓 Education
🏫 B.S. Computer Science
State University · Philadelphia · 2021
⚡
Before — the resume that gets ignored
Build your own resume in seconds! ↑
The 10-Second Rule
What a resume screener's eyes jump to, in order of importance:
The initial resume screener for a software engineering role is usually a recruiter or HR person, not another engineer. They don't know React from Angular, a framework from a library. What they're actually looking for is positive signal that they should talk to you, or negative signal that they shouldn't. And they're trying to get all that in 10 seconds or less, so they can get through the stack of 1,000 resumes in front of them that the AI ATS passed through.
What a screener processes in under 10 seconds:
① Employer
Google? Stripe? Hot startup?
The company you work for is the single biggest signal; it's borrowed validation from someone else's credibly rigorous standards. Use a company overview bullet to brag about your current and past employers.
Current Employer = Biggest Signal
② Title
Sr. SWE? Staff? Principal? VP?
Your level matters enormously, so make sure it's italicized and easily seen. For junior or staff level engineers, it's ok to chnage the title a touch to better match roles you're applying for (e.g., "Front End Engineer" on your resume is fine instead of your official title of "Software Engineer" if you're applying for front-end roles); executives shouldn't modify their title.
Title and Level Matters
③ Top Bullet
Domain + Product Example + Tech Stack + Numbers
Open with your single best achievement, or what you're most proud of or passionate about. Lead with impact numbers (revenue growth, number of users, transaction volume, margin increase, etc.). Include a sub-bullet point with your tech stack (probably mention "NLP," for real). And you should honestly have an AI-enabled SDLC at this point ("AI pilled af" is the ask we keep hearing from CEOs and hiring managers).
Blow Them Away
④ Skills
Python · React · AWS · NLP/ML/CV
The screener uses your Skills section to sanity-check your qualifications before putting you into the YES pile. Lead with what the posting requires first, and edit, rearrange, add, and remove skills depending on the job you're appying for.
Keyword Match
⑤ The Goal of a Resume
A resume isn't a perfect representation of the self (spoiler alert: the self isn't real). It isn't your life story, a piece of you, or a full explanation of your entire career. A resume is a blunt tool to land a phone call. That's it.
Everything on your resume exists to achieve this one thing, and to get you on the phone. When you start to look at it more dispassionately, the structure becomes clearer, and you better understand how you're leading the resume's viewer to water.
Get the interview
What actually works
✅ DO THIS on your SWE resume
- Include a company overview bullet for each employer.
- Put your GitHub link in your header.
- List skills as separate bullet points: Technologies → Languages → Tools → Skills
- Quantify your achievements.
- Keep your resume to one page, especially if you're under 10 years of experience.
- End with one line about Interests — you'll get asked about them!
❌ NEVER DO THIS
- NO summaries on resumes. ("Passionate engineer who loves…", cool, thanks ChatGPT). (Note: executive-level candidates can have a summary.)
- Don't list every technology you've ever touched; prioritize based on the role.
- Don't use multiple columns, icons, or colors; this type of formatting kills both the ATS and screeners' ability to read your resume.
- Don't bury your best employer or most impressive thing halfway down the page.
- Don't include references – give those if/when asked later on.
- Don't put a photo on a US/UK/Canadian resume.
"
Is this resume blessed by God or what? Got a $20K pay raise after switching to this format!
u/Ltroastabotch1 · r/jobs · 4,200 upvotes
Common questions
Best Software Engineer Resume FAQ
Answered honestly by Colin McIntosh, founder of Sheets Resume Builder and full-time executive recruiter.
Should I include side projects on my software engineer resume?
Only if your relevant professional experience is thin (under 2 to 3 years) or if the project is genuinely impressive and directly relevant. If you have 5+ years of relevant experience, your recent work history should be carrying all the weight, and that's what they want to see the most. Vibe-coded side projects are somewhat noise, unless you're early-career or really trying to drive home that you're so passionate about the industry that you build projects for it in your spare time. That said, if you shipped something with real users, press coverage, or meaningful traction, absolutely include it. You can add Projects to your resume in the Sheets Resume Builder here.
Do I need to worry about the ATS for engineering jobs? Is my resume even being seen?
ATS software has become a boogeyman for mediocre candidates who are trying to rationalize away why they're not getting interviews, and absolve themselves of any responsibility. (Harsh but true, sorry.) This ATS boogeyman is also a very convenient piece of content fodder for online "resume gurus" who like to advertise their services with bloviating ChatGPT-generated Reddit posts that start with "Your resume isn't even making it to a human. Here's why."
The ATS isn't the real filter; the human screener still is. Think about it: what would cause a company to ditch an ATS? Think... exactly, if it over-screened and held back qualified candidates from reaching your desk. But if a few bad resumes slip in? That's ok, you're not going to uninstall the software or switch to a competitor because a few less-than-stellar resumes sneak their way through the ATS moat. Therefore, all ATS's – even AI/NLP-native ones – are incentivized to avoid blocking qualified candidates, so they err on the side of inclusion.
On the flip side, the human screener (usually someone junior) has a strong incentive not to schedule interviews with unqualified people (so they don't look like a bozo in front of their boss by scheduling interviews with bad candidates), so they are ruthless when deciding who gets on the phone.
TL;DR - Focus on impressing the human, not gaming the machine; if you're genuinely qualified for the jobs you're applying to, you'll naturally get through any ATS screen.
The ATS isn't the real filter; the human screener still is. Think about it: what would cause a company to ditch an ATS? Think... exactly, if it over-screened and held back qualified candidates from reaching your desk. But if a few bad resumes slip in? That's ok, you're not going to uninstall the software or switch to a competitor because a few less-than-stellar resumes sneak their way through the ATS moat. Therefore, all ATS's – even AI/NLP-native ones – are incentivized to avoid blocking qualified candidates, so they err on the side of inclusion.
On the flip side, the human screener (usually someone junior) has a strong incentive not to schedule interviews with unqualified people (so they don't look like a bozo in front of their boss by scheduling interviews with bad candidates), so they are ruthless when deciding who gets on the phone.
TL;DR - Focus on impressing the human, not gaming the machine; if you're genuinely qualified for the jobs you're applying to, you'll naturally get through any ATS screen.
Should I put my GitHub link on my resume?
Yes. A clean GitHub profile with real projects and commit history is a genuine green flag for technical screeners. Just make sure it's tidy first: pin your best repos, write real READMEs, and delete anything embarrassing. Side note: you should be pretty prolific these days in terms of the number of lines of code you can commit with an AI-enabled SDLC.
What about your LinkedIn? No, we don't recommend it for most candidates; it doesn't add much and opens you up to visual discrimination. That said, for executive candidates or people who are public-facing and post on LinkedIn as part of your professional responsibilities, you are the exceptions to our "skip your LinkedIn on your resume" advice.
What about your LinkedIn? No, we don't recommend it for most candidates; it doesn't add much and opens you up to visual discrimination. That said, for executive candidates or people who are public-facing and post on LinkedIn as part of your professional responsibilities, you are the exceptions to our "skip your LinkedIn on your resume" advice.