CV Example for a Software Engineer

The strongest signal is what you actually built: the systems, the scale they ran at, and the measurable impact.

Skills employers screen for

• Designing software architecture
• Full-stack front-end and back-end development
• Database design and complex queries
• Building and documenting APIs
• Automated testing and CI/CD pipelines
• Code review and performance optimisation
• Working in Agile with iterative delivery

Keywords an ATS would look for

• software development
• software architecture
• REST APIs
• cloud infrastructure
• CI/CD
• unit testing

CV section order

1. Summary with core technologies
2. Projects and measurable impact
3. Experience and technical roles
4. Categorised technical skills
5. Degree and open-source contributions

Software Engineer resume example

Software Engineer — systems design and cloud services

Software engineer with seven years designing distributed systems and building highly available cloud services. I lead design reviews, set the team's engineering standards, and track performance and cost signals in production.

Senior Software Engineer — Northwind Cloud Platform — Seattle, WA | 2021 – Present

• Redesigned the billing service to sustain 3,000 requests per second at 99.95% availability over 12 months.
• Reduced monthly hosting spend 27% by rebalancing load and right-sizing services.
• Led 60 design reviews and published an engineering standard adopted by three teams.

Software Engineer — Vertex Software — Boston, MA | 2018 – 2021

• Built a deployment pipeline that cut release time from 3 days to 2 hours with no manual steps.
• Delivered 5 microservices and documented their contracts, letting two teams work in parallel.
• Cut critical-path response time 41% by analysing traces and removing redundant sequential calls.

Education: BSc Software Engineering — University of Washington, 2018

Core skills: Java, Go, Kubernetes, AWS, PostgreSQL, Kafka, distributed systems design, CI/CD, observability, code review

Ready templates that suit this profession

• ATS Tech Pro — It pairs a parser-friendly structure with a clear read on engineering experience and stack. Use this template
• Modern — It surfaces availability and performance numbers, the language an engineering manager reads. Use this template
• Executive — Suits an application into tech lead or engineering manager after seven years. Use this template

Tools that help in this profession

• ATS Resume Scanner — Test your CV against the strict filters some large employers run before you submit.
• Interview Question Predictor — Rehearse the technical interview questions on architecture and trade-offs.
• Salary Estimator — Benchmark the offer against software engineering pay before you negotiate.

Frequently asked questions

How do I explain engineering decisions on a CV?

Use problem, decision, result: the service failed at 800 requests per second, so I reworked the middleware layer, and the ceiling moved to 3,000 at 99.95% availability. One sentence like that beats three descriptive lines.

Should I list every technology I have touched?

No. List only what you can defend in a technical interview, and mark proficiency if the list is long. Endless shallow lists weaken a CV where the interviewer actually verifies.

How does a developer CV differ from a software engineer CV?

A developer CV highlights delivered tasks; a software engineer CV highlights architectural decisions and their impact on the system and team. Applying for an engineering role, make that section visible instead of burying it in duties.