Skip to main content
Free resume exampleUpdated September 2026

πŸ’» Software Engineer resume example

A software engineer resume example built to pass applicant tracking systems and read well to a hiring manager. It uses standard section headings, a single column, plain text, and the exact keywords employers put in software engineering job posts: languages, frameworks, cloud, and delivery practices. Every bullet pairs an action verb with a technology and a measurable result.

Free β€’ Opens with the example filled in β€’ Download as PDF after a free signup

This example contains 25 of 71 ATS keywords employers use for Software Engineer roles.

Keywords come from the same dictionary the 22skills ATS checker scores against. Matched terms are shown in green.

Example resume

Fictional example. Name, employers and numbers are invented; the structure and keywords are real.

Jordan Ellis

Software Engineer Β· Backend & Cloud

Austin, United States

About

Software Engineer with 6 years of experience building backend services and cloud infrastructure for B2B SaaS products. Designed REST and event-driven APIs in Python and TypeScript serving 40M requests a day, cut infrastructure cost 31% by migrating workloads to Kubernetes on AWS, and led code review and mentoring for a team of five. Comfortable owning a service end to end, from schema design in PostgreSQL to CI/CD and on-call.

Experience

  • Northwind AnalyticsΒ· Senior Software EngineerAustin, TX (hybrid)2023-02 – Present
    • Own the ingestion platform (Python, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, Redis) that processes 40M events a day for 300+ enterprise customers with 99.95% availability.
    • Migrated 14 services from EC2 to Kubernetes (EKS) with Terraform and Helm, reducing monthly infrastructure spend 31% and deploy time from 45 minutes to 6.
    • Designed an event-driven pipeline on AWS (SQS, Lambda, S3) that replaced nightly batch jobs and cut data freshness from 24 hours to under 5 minutes.
    • Lead code review for a team of five engineers and mentor two junior developers; introduced ADRs and a testing standard that raised coverage from 54% to 86%.
    • Built the CI/CD pipeline in GitHub Actions with canary deploys and automated rollback, taking production incidents caused by releases from 6 per quarter to 1.
  • Bluefin SoftwareΒ· Software EngineerRemote2020-06 – 2023-01
    • Developed customer-facing features across a Django and React stack for a payments product used by 12,000 merchants; shipped in two-week Scrum sprints.
    • Rewrote the reporting API in TypeScript (Node.js) with Elasticsearch, bringing p95 latency down from 2.4 s to 380 ms.
    • Introduced Docker-based local environments and integration tests, cutting onboarding time for new engineers from two weeks to three days.
    • Handled on-call for the payments service and authored runbooks that reduced mean time to recovery by 40%.
  • Campus Labs (internship)Β· Software Engineering InternAustin, TX2019-06 – 2019-09
    • Built an internal dashboard in React and Next.js consuming a REST API, adopted by 30 support staff.
    • Wrote unit tests in Jest and pytest and fixed 25 backlog bugs in a MongoDB-backed service.

Education

  • University of Texas at AustinΒ· B.S. Computer ScienceComputer Science2016-08 – 2020-05

    Coursework: distributed systems, databases, algorithms. Teaching assistant for Data Structures.

Projects

  • queue-liteΒ· Creator and maintainer
    https://github.com/jordan-ellis-dev/queue-lite

    Open-source job queue for Python on top of Redis with retries, priorities and a small dashboard. 1,200 GitHub stars, used in production by three companies.

Certifications

  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate Β· Amazon Web Services (2024)
  • Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) Β· The Linux Foundation (2023)

Why this example passes the ATS

  • The headline and summary name the target role and the core stack in the first three lines, which is where recruiters and keyword filters look first.
  • Skills are grouped by category (languages, frameworks, data, cloud) with the exact spelling employers use, such as "PostgreSQL", "Kubernetes" and "CI/CD", so keyword matching works without stuffing.
  • Each experience bullet follows action verb + technology + number: "Migrated 14 services … reducing spend 31%". The ATS finds the keyword and the human finds the impact.
  • Certifications use their full official names plus the acronym, for example "Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)", so both forms match.
  • Dates use one consistent format, headings are the standard ones parsers expect, and there are no tables, columns, icons or graphics to break parsing.

Software Engineer ATS keywords in this example

Grouped the way the checker groups them. Green terms appear in the example above; grey ones are in the dictionary but not used here.

Programming Languages

3/15
  • Python
  • TypeScript
  • Go
  • Java
  • JavaScript
  • C++
  • C#
  • Rust
  • Ruby
  • PHP
  • Swift
  • Kotlin
  • Scala
  • R
  • MATLAB

Frameworks & Libraries

5/14
  • React
  • Node.js
  • Django
  • Next.js
  • FastAPI
  • Angular
  • Vue.js
  • Flask
  • Spring Boot
  • Express.js
  • Ruby on Rails
  • .NET
  • Laravel
  • Svelte

Databases

4/12
  • PostgreSQL
  • MongoDB
  • Redis
  • Elasticsearch
  • MySQL
  • DynamoDB
  • Oracle
  • SQL Server
  • Cassandra
  • Firebase
  • SQLite
  • Neo4j

Cloud & DevOps

7/13
  • AWS
  • Docker
  • Kubernetes
  • Terraform
  • CI/CD
  • GitHub Actions
  • Linux
  • Azure
  • GCP
  • Jenkins
  • GitLab CI
  • Ansible
  • Nginx

Soft Skills

5/9
  • Agile
  • Scrum
  • Code Review
  • Mentoring
  • Technical Leadership
  • Team Collaboration
  • Problem Solving
  • Communication
  • Documentation

Certifications

1/8
  • AWS Certified
  • Google Cloud Certified
  • Azure Certified
  • Kubernetes (CKA)
  • Scrum Master
  • PMP
  • CompTIA
  • Oracle Certified

How to adapt this example to your own experience

  1. 1Replace the stack in the skills section with the technologies from the job description you are applying to, keeping the same grouped layout. Aim for 15 to 22 skills, not 40.
  2. 2Keep the most recent role longest. Three to five bullets for the current job, two to four for older ones, one to two for internships.
  3. 3Turn every bullet into a result: what changed, by how much, for whom. If you do not have a number, use scale instead (users, requests, services, team size).
  4. 4Mirror the job title from the posting in your headline when it is close to your real title, for example "Backend Engineer" instead of "Software Developer II".
  5. 5Delete anything the ATS cannot read or the recruiter does not need: photos, skill bars, two-column layouts, a long list of every language you have touched once.

Questions about the Software Engineer resume

How long should a software engineer resume be?

One page for up to about five years of experience, two pages at most for senior engineers. Applicant tracking systems do not penalize length, but recruiters skim, so the current role and the skills section must fit on the first page.

Should I list every programming language I know?

No. List the languages and tools you would be comfortable being interviewed on, grouped by category, and lead with the ones named in the job description. A focused list of 15 to 22 skills matches better than a wall of 50 keywords.

Do I need projects on a software engineer resume?

They help most for junior engineers and career changers, where they replace missing work experience. For experienced engineers, one open-source or side project with real usage is enough, and it should be cut if it pushes the resume past the length limit.

Is this resume format safe for ATS software like Workday or Greenhouse?

Yes. It is a single column with standard headings (Experience, Education, Skills, Certifications), plain text bullets, and consistent dates, which is what parsers in Workday, Greenhouse, Lever and iCIMS read reliably. Export it as a text-based PDF or DOCX, never as an image.

Next steps for your Software Engineer resume

More resume examples

Make this Software Engineer resume yours

Open the example in the free builder, replace the details, and download an ATS-safe PDF. No credit card.