Software Developer Resume Sample

That’s where we can help you. At the end of this article, you will be surprised to see how easy it is to write your own resume for your next software engineering job.

We are going to make it so easy that you’ll feel like you’re coding your resume with your favorite programming language.

Without further due, let’s get into the task!

Did you know the average annual pay for a senior software engineer is a staggering $119,00? (Payscale.com).

This is a perfect time to be a software engineer. All top companies around the globe including the Fortune 500 are actively hiring for software engineer and senior software engineer positions.

Reportedly, the salary is the highest at Microsoft Corporation. They are paying $149,000 per year on average. However, unreported smaller IT firms may pay you more as they have attractive stock options for senior software engineers and it would even be easy to land a job.

Are you ready to get your dream job? So you’re in your first and most important step!

How to make an Experience Software Developer Resume?

Just like you start your new software engineering project with a proper plan, your resume needs a proper structure and a resume layout to start.

The right resume format will save you a lot of time and the process will make sure that you include all the relevant information in your job application. When you have the perfect resume template, it’s just a matter of filling in the gaps.

A hiring manager in a software company gets hundreds of resumes for a demanding position. So they spend about 6-8 seconds on average on one application. You need to make sure that these couple of seconds make the impression that you’re a great hire for them.

Why does a one-page resume outperform the lengthy ones?

Put yourself in the shoes of a typical HR manager in an IT company. With hundreds of resumes to shortlist, which one would you prefer?

Probably the one where all the important details is concisely written in one page right?

The layout of the Experience Software Developer Resume

Plan the layout of your resume first. Then the rest is about filling in your information. Use the following layout for a senior software engineer resume sections.

• Header with your name and contact details
• Professional summary
• Work experience
• Project experience
• Education
• Skills
• Softwares and certifications

This is a time-tested layout that will be perfect for your requirements. This layout will make sure that you only write what is necessary for the position you apply for, regardless of what you have done in the last 10 years.

And guess what, hiring managers love to see resumes that are WRITTEN TO THE POINT.

The structure of the Experience Software Developer Resume

We recommend structuring a senior software engineer resume based on the reverse chronological format.

This will especially affect the way you list your experience and education sections. For example, when you write your experience section, you should start with your previous or the current position and list down your latest experience first.

This is the software engineer resume template hiring manager would expect from you. They need to know you are a potential match to their job description and how they do it is by scanning your latest information on the resume.

Further, consider these points while you write your resume,

• Send your resume in PDF format
• Use a clear and readable font
• Use a font size of 12-14 for the body text and a bigger font size (about 15-16) for the headings

Start with the header of the Experience Software Developer Resume

This is the most underrated part of resume writing though we believe this is the second most important part of your resume after your experience section.

Your header should start with your name.

Then why is it that important?

Because the header is where the recruiters spend their first 2-3 seconds. This is where you should make your first impression. Take a look below at the software engineer resume sample.

Example of a header / Example of a bad header

CORRECT

Olivia Jacob

Software Engineer

oliviajacob12@gmail.com

+1 245 58 92 14

https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivia

INCORRECT

Software Engineer

Olivia Jacob

oliviathewildbeast@gmail.com

+1 232 87 83 96

101, main street, apt 184,

Washington DC

USA

There are a few important points we should highlight about writing the perfect header for your software engineer resume.

Always start the software engineer resume header with your name. Those are the most unique words in your resume. Do not start with your job title

Use a professional yet personal email address to send the software engineer resume. Do not mention your current work email for this.

You do not have to mention your residential address unless it is really necessary.

Optimize your LinkedIn profile and remove unnecessary posts on your social media. Hiring managers would not get into such details at the shortlisting stage, but they may search for you on social media before making a hiring decision.

Is a photo required in the Experience Software Developer Resume?

This is a tricky part. Some companies mention in the job description to put a clear headshot of the candidate.

However, most of the organisations in the USA are strictly against this practice. If you think it through, asking for a photograph of the candidate could lead to discrimination from one side.

To be on the safe side, do not include a photograph on your resume.

Instead, update your LinkedIn account with a great photograph of yourself. A clean, colorful professional-looking headshot.

Professional summary/profile

A professional software engineer summary is a collection of a couple of sentences that best describes your software engineer skills, experience, accomplishments, and passion towards the career. As the name suggests, it is your software engineer resume summary.

Use this section as your sales pitch to grab the hiring manager's attention.

A research carried out interviewing 1000+ job applicants found that an applicant spends 30-40% of their resume writing time on optimizing the professional objective section. We know this is an area where the software engineering resume writer struggles.

Therefore we have created this attention-grabbing professional summary templates for senior software engineer resume so that you can just select and edit as fits to your personality. Check out our resume templates here.

Following is an example of a Professional Summary for a senior software engineer resume.

INCORRECT

A software engineer who possess 3+ years of experience, having hands-on experience in C++, JAVA, Python and PHP looking for an opportunity in a senior position

CORRECT

A passionate Software Engineer with 3+ years of experience excited to join XYZ Inc to develop the Artificial Intelligence based product line to the next level. In my previous position, I was heading the AI section where we built an AI based video creator using Python and JAVA that was sold for $60 million

Do you realize what makes the second summary better?

The second one is energetic and most importantly, it features one of your achievements, which impresses the hiring managers. Don’t you think they can make a decision there itself?

Here’s an example of a Career Objective for a software engineer going through a career change.

INCORRECT

A software engineer with 3+ years of experience in web app development, seeking to move into a position in an Artificial Intelligence based project.

CORRECT

A results oriented Software Engineer with 3+ years of experience in web app development excited to join ABC Inc to join the Artificial Intelligence based product line. In the previous position, I developed a Home Automation System that increased the company revenue by 25%.

Career changes are hard. You can use a Career Objective in your software engineer resume as your sales pitch to show them that you would be a great fit.

You need to show your passion and enthusiasm towards the new position and show them that you are a fast learner. Also include the results you achieved in your previous position.

Work Experience in the Experience Software Developer Resume

This is the section you should spend most of your time writing.

Did you know, 80% of hiring managers get straight to the software engineer experience section for shortlisting and 60% of them just read your latest or the current experience section?

Therefore, this section will make or break your next job interview dream.

Let us take you through this section step by step!

Describe your professional experiences on your Experience Software Developer Resume

Use the reverse chronological order to list down your experience. Which means you should first write your current or the previous position you worked.

In this section, you should use more numbers. Quantify your achievements and results as much as possible as a software engineer. Remember, this is the section where you lift your resume to the top 5% of resumes.

Examples of professional experiences for Experience Software Developer Resume beginner/junior

INCORRECT

Aug 2019 to Present

CapitalX LLC

• Involved in programming using C++
• Artificial Intelligence work experience
• Cloud computing
• Managed 5 team members of software engineers

CORRECT

Aug 2015 to Present

CapitalX LLC

• Create and maintain data structures for external clients
• Used machine learning and data mining generate user data to improve product offering
• Increased the client retention rate by a staggering 17% with the new AI based CRM system
• Modern cloud computing and infrastructure planning
• Cut down security breaches by 97%

Even if you are creating a junior level software engineer resume, use the keywords stated in the job description when writing your experience.

For beginners who have zero corporate experience, still you can showcase a project you carried out while reading for your software engineering degree.

The golden rule here is to write what they ask for. Most of these tech companies are using an applicant tracking system for shortlisting which scans through your resume to see whether it matches the job description.

Examples of work experience for Senior Experience Software Developer resume

INCORRECT

Aug 2016 to Present

Senior Software Engineer- CapitalX LLC

• Handled international client projects
• Planned data structuring techniques
• Managed a team of junior Software engineers

CORRECT

Aug 2015 to Present

Senior Software Engineer CapitalX LLC

• Managed a data structure creation project worth $6 million with a team of 12 software engineers
• Led a project handling 6 programmers to undertake software development life cycle for 10+ clients
• Used machine learning to analyze customer buying habits for a client project and achieved a 15% increase in landing page conversion rate
• Lead a team of 5 software engineers to create a customized SAAS CRM platform within 6 months

As a senior software engineer, apart from your technical skills, try to showcase your soft skills such as team building, leadership and communication in your previous position.

The company you’re applying for may need a senior person to take up more managerial challenges in the future.

Education in the Experience Software Developer Resume

To become a Software Engineer, you need to have a set of academic qualifications. There are very few companies hiring self-taught candidates. Even if you are a self-taught applicant, read through to the end and I will give you a strategy to bypass this stage.
The academic qualifications they are seeking would be stated in the job description. However, you don’t need to have all of that to apply for the job.

The qualifications typically include a computer science degree and a Master’s.

Should you start with education or work experience for a Software Developer Resume?

For a resume of a senior software engineer, you should definitely start with your experience as that is your strength.

A junior software engineer or a beginner can start with education qualifications.

However, which section comes first will solely be based upon two factors.

• Your strengths: If your strength is experience you should start with that
• Job description: read the job description very carefully and see whether they give priority for the education qualifications or the experience and start with that

How to properly list your education in an Experience Software Developer Resume?

When you are listing your education qualifications, use a format consistently to list out all your education. We recommend the following :

Start with your degree type and the major

You can also mention your GPA if it’s greater than 3.0

Example of the Education section of a Experience Software Developer Resume

Skills to put in the Resume for an Experience Software Developer Resume

Most software engineer resumes make the mistake of listing unrelated skills that they believe they have. That anyway is not the objective of this section.

Hiring managers want to see your specific and relevant skills to perform the tasks they have listed in the job description.

Therefore, when you’re writing the skills section, you have to make it aligned with the job ad carefully.

What are the main skills sought for an Experience Software Developer Resume

As you all know, skills can basically be categorized into two sections as soft skills and hard skills.

Soft Skills: These type of skills are generic and difficult to measure

• Time Management
• Creative thinking
• Teamwork
• Attention to detail
• Communication skills
• Problem-solving
• Business intelligence
• Leadership

Hard Skills: These type of skills are more specific and easy to measure with the experience and education of the candidate

• Cloud computing
• IOT
• Programming languages: SQL, Python, JAVA script, C++
• Object-oriented programming
• Debugging
• Artificial Intelligence

When you are writing the skills section, you need to identify the balance between the soft skills and hard skills. Both should be included in the resume.

Don’t state generic skills here. Hiring managers hate to see software engineer resumes with generic skills listed.

Write a list of soft skills, hard skills, IT skills and programming languages you master.

What skills for a junior Software Developer

When you are applying for a junior software engineer position, focus on writing skills that showcase your operational skills as the recruiters are expecting a doer.

• Communication skills
• Problem solving
• Teamwork
• Artificial Intelligence
• Cloud computing
• Programming with C++, JAVA and Python

What skills for a qualified senior Software Developer

Write a mix of skills in your senior software engineer resume skill section. However, put more weight into more managerial level skills.

• Communication and leadership
• Time management and project management
• People management
• Object-oriented programming
• Artificial Intelligence
• Programming with C++, JAVA and PHP

Additional Headings for your Experience Software Developer Resume

An additional section in your resume has so much potential to get noticed by the recruiting teams. If you are an outgoing personality having so much more to offer apart from being a software engineer to the organization, this section would be golden.

However, keep in mind to keep your resume clean and relevant all the time.

Computer skills and certifications

The best type of information to put on this section are your certifications. For software engineers, there are many skill certifications that are offered by different public and private institutions.

Some of these certifications are highly valuable. Some organizations consider them more valuable than the academic degree programs.

For example, average pay for the top five certification holders are as follows

• Google Certified Professional Cloud Architect- $176,000
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect- $149,000
• CISM- Certified Information Security Manager- $149,000
• CRISC- Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control- $146,000
• PMP- Project Management Professional- $143,000

If you have one of these, you should make sure they see it. Having it in a separate section would increase the visibility.

Interests

Writing your interest is not useful in many instances. However, if you think one of your interests would positively impact your position as a software engineer or one of your interests complements your leadership, communication or teamwork skill, you may write it.

For example, you being an active member of a popular Toastmasters club would showcase your communication skills.

Languages

If you are applying for an overseas position in a country where English is not the main language in use, you may have to add this section.

Some job descriptions mention that having fluency in a particular language would be an advantage.

Summary: key points for writing a perfect Experience Software Developer Resume

• Start the header with your name in use
• If you state your LinkedIn profile, make sure you optimize it
• Senior software engineers should write a Professional Summary
• Junior software engineers could write an Objective Statement
• Spend as much as half of your resume writing time optimizing the experience section
• Use a consistent format to present your education section
• Write a mix of soft skills, hard skills, IT skills and programming languages in the skills section. However, keep it relevant to job requirements

Write a cover letter that goes with your Experience Software Developer Resume

Some employers ask for cover letters while some won’t. However, it's good to be ready to make one if they ask.

Your software engineer cover letter should complement your resume.

Ideal cover letter size is maximum one page. It should be a few paragraphs concisely written about who you are, what you can do and how you have proved you can do it.

Start with a hook to grab the attention of the HR manager.

Here is a perfect cover letter template you can replicate:

• In your first paragraph, write how you can help them grow
• In the second paragraph, tell them what are your special skills and achievements
• In the third paragraph, state how you helped your previous employer with your skills

Use numbers to prove your statements. Be realistic!

At the end, ask for a time to have a meeting and talk further about how you can help them grow their business.

Frequently Asked Questions