Free Resume Examples
Software Engineer Resume Examples & ATS Keywords
The exact keywords ATS software scans for in software engineer resumes, the mistakes that get them rejected, and a real bullet rewrite.
Keywords ATS software scans for
Include the ones that genuinely match your background, don't keyword-stuff.
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Tools and technologies to name
Relevant certifications
ATS checklist for software engineer resumes
Include direct clickable links to GitHub and LinkedIn profiles in the header.
Explicitly state the tech stack used for each job entry.
Quantify performance: latency reduction %, DAU/MAU scale, traffic handled.
List skills as plain comma-separated text or bullet points, without complex tables.
Common Software Engineer resume mistakes
Listing every language or framework ever touched instead of the 5-8 that match the job description.
Describing responsibilities ("worked on backend services") instead of impact: latency, uptime, scale, cost.
No mention of team size, codebase scale, or user-facing impact, which makes seniority impossible to judge.
Missing evidence of ownership: shipped features, on-call rotation, mentoring, or architecture decisions.
Listing 30 programming languages without demonstrable depth in any.
Missing GitHub or portfolio link showing real-world code.
Passive responsibility bullets like "Responsible for writing code".
Weak vs. strong bullet example
Weak
Worked on backend features using Node.js and improved the API.
Strong
Redesigned the checkout API's database queries and added Redis caching, cutting p95 latency from 800ms to 140ms and reducing timeout-related support tickets by 90%.
Weak
Worked on backend application and fixed reported user bugs.
Strong
Redesigned core checkout payment service in Node.js & PostgreSQL, reducing transaction processing latency from 850ms to 190ms and error rates by 38% across 250K+ monthly orders.
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