Dossier
Resume keywordsSoftware Engineer

Software Engineer resume keywords

Hiring teams scan for the stack first, then for proof that you shipped something people used.

Skills to show

Use the exact phrase where it is true, inside a bullet and not only in a list.

  • data structures
  • system design
  • REST API
  • unit testing
  • CI/CD
  • code review
  • microservices
  • agile

Tools and software

  • JavaScript
  • TypeScript
  • Python
  • Java
  • SQL
  • Docker
  • AWS
  • Git

Verbs that fit software engineer work

  • built
  • shipped
  • migrated
  • optimized
  • refactored
  • automated

Example bullets

The numbers are examples. Replace them with your own and round honestly.

  • Built a REST API in Node.js serving 40 clients, with p95 latency under 120 ms.
  • Migrated a monolith's billing module to a separate service, cutting deploy time from 45 minutes to 8.
  • Wrote unit and integration tests that took coverage on the checkout flow from 31% to 82%.

Mistakes to avoid

  • Listing every language you have touched. Group by what you use daily and what you have shipped in.
  • Describing the team's work as "we" with no line that says what you did.