A great software engineering resume is your ticket to interviews at top tech companies. Whether you're a fresher or a senior engineer with 10+ years of experience, this guide will help you craft a resume that showcases your technical skills and impact.
Resume Structure for Software Engineers
Follow this proven structure optimized for tech hiring.
Header
Name, email, phone, LinkedIn, GitHub, and portfolio link. Skip physical address—it's outdated and wastes space.
Professional Summary
2-3 sentences highlighting: years of experience, core technologies, biggest achievement, and what you're looking for. Example: "Senior Software Engineer with 6+ years building scalable distributed systems at Google. Led migration saving $1.2M annually. Seeking technical leadership role in AI infrastructure."
Technical Skills
Group by category: Languages, Frameworks, Databases, Cloud, Tools. List in order of proficiency. Include only technologies you can discuss confidently in interviews.
Experience
Most recent first. For each role: Company, Title, Duration, 4-5 bullet points. Focus on impact, not duties.
Quantifying Engineering Impact
Numbers differentiate top resumes. Here's how to quantify your work.
Performance Improvements
"Reduced API latency from 400ms to 80ms (5x improvement), improving user retention by 15%." Include before/after metrics and business impact.
Scale Metrics
"Built data pipeline processing 2TB daily for 50M+ users." Scale numbers demonstrate complexity handling.
Business Impact
"Developed recommendation engine increasing revenue by ₹2Cr quarterly." Tie technical work to business outcomes when possible.
Projects for Freshers
No work experience? Projects can demonstrate your abilities effectively.
What to Include
Choose 2-3 substantial projects. Include: project name, tech stack, description, your specific contributions, and metrics (users, GitHub stars, performance benchmarks).
Open Source
Open source contributions show real-world coding ability. Mention specific PRs merged, issues resolved, or features added to well-known projects.
Conclusion
Your resume is marketing material, not a job description. Focus on impact, quantify everything, and tailor for each application. Use Infinite Resume's AI to optimize your technical resume for both ATS systems and human reviewers.