Software Engineer resume — templates, keywords, and bullet examples
Software engineering resumes are read by both ATS parsers and humans in under 11 seconds. Both reward density of impact + the right keyword surface.
How to angle a software engineer resume
The two formats that work for SWE resumes are Jake's Resume (single column) and Deedy (two column, dense). Both privilege technical projects and quantified impact bullets over prose.
Lead with Experience if you have 2+ years; lead with Projects if you're new-grad or transitioning. Either way, every bullet should name the technology AND the outcome — "Built a Kafka-backed event pipeline processing 80M events/day" beats "Built an event pipeline".
Section order: New grad: Education → Projects → Experience → Skills. Mid/senior: Experience → Projects → Education → Skills.
Recommended templates for software engineers
ATS keywords recruiters filter on
These are the keywords most software engineer JDs use as their ATS-filter inputs. Make sure the ones you genuinely have evidence for are in your Skills section.
Starter Skills section
Paste this into the Skills section of the editor as a starting point, then prune to what you genuinely have evidence for.
Bullet examples you can adapt
Three starter bullets following the action-verb / quantified-outcome pattern. Replace bracketed placeholders with your actual specifics — never invent.