CV example
Software engineer CV example
Engineering hiring managers skim for three things: what you built, how big it was, and what changed because of it. This example shows a mid-level backend-leaning engineer who makes all three obvious in a single page.
Below you'll find a full example CV (also called a résumé), summaries for different experience levels, the skills and keywords employers search for, stronger bullet points, and the interview questions to prepare for.
Software engineer CV summary examples
Your summary is the first thing a recruiter reads. Two or three sentences: who you are, your strongest evidence, and what you want next. Here is the example CV's summary, plus versions for other levels.
Example CV
Software engineer with 5 years of experience building backend services and APIs in TypeScript and Go. Comfortable owning features from design to production, and known for making slow systems fast and flaky ones reliable.
Graduate or junior
Computer science graduate who has shipped two production web apps during internships and side projects, using React, Node.js and PostgreSQL. Strong fundamentals in data structures and testing, and eager to learn from code review.
Senior
Senior software engineer with 9 years designing distributed systems for fintech. Led the migration of a monolith to 14 services without downtime, and sets engineering standards for a team of 12.
Skills to put on a software engineer CV
Hard skills
- A main language you can go deep in (for example TypeScript, Java, Go or Python)
- API design (REST, GraphQL or gRPC)
- SQL and at least one database you have tuned
- Automated testing (unit, integration, end-to-end)
- Cloud platforms (AWS, GCP or Azure)
- Docker and CI/CD pipelines
- System design and scalability
- Observability: logs, metrics and tracing
Soft skills
- Writing clear design documents
- Code review that teaches
- Breaking big problems into shippable steps
- Working with product and design
Show soft skills through your bullet points rather than listing them on the CV itself.
Keywords recruiters and ATS look for
Many employers screen CVs with an applicant tracking system (ATS) that matches words from the job ad. These come up often in software engineer postings. Use the ones that are true for you, in the same wording as the job you're applying for. To compare your CV with a specific job ad, use the free CV keyword checker, or have Litjob tailor your CV to the job description for you.
- software engineer
- backend
- full stack
- microservices
- REST API
- distributed systems
- CI/CD
- unit testing
- cloud
- agile
- code review
- scalability
For live figures, see the skills most requested in Software engineering job ads, updated weekly from thousands of postings.
Bullet points: before and after
Strong bullet points say what you did, how big it was and what changed. Compare:
WeakWorked on the backend team.
StrongerBuilt and own the order service (Node.js, PostgreSQL) that handles 40,000 orders a day.
WeakImproved performance of the app.
StrongerCut page load time from 4.2 s to 1.3 s by adding caching and removing N+1 database queries.
WeakResponsible for testing.
StrongerRaised test coverage from 35% to 80% and added CI checks that block failing builds.
WeakHelped with the cloud migration.
StrongerMoved 9 services from VMs to Kubernetes, cutting hosting costs by 30%.
Only use numbers you can explain in an interview. An honest estimate (“about 30%”) is better than a made-up exact figure.
Tips for writing a software engineer CV
Lead with impact, then the stack
Recruiters read the first few words of each bullet. Start with what you built or changed, and put the technologies at the end or in brackets.
Match the job’s stack honestly
If the posting asks for Go and you have used it, make sure "Go" appears in your skills and in a bullet. Do not list languages you could not discuss in an interview.
Link to work people can see
A GitHub profile, a portfolio or a technical blog is worth more than a long skills list. Pin your two or three best repositories.
One page until about 8 years in
Cut coursework, old internships and generic skills like "Microsoft Office" first. Keep the space for production work.
Common software engineer interview questions
Your CV gets you the interview, and interviewers will ask about what's on it. Prepare for these:
- Tell me about a system you designed. What would you change now?
- Pick something from your CV, sketch the components, and be honest about one trade-off you would make differently.
- How do you debug a production incident?
- Walk through a real incident: how you noticed it, narrowed it down with logs or metrics, fixed it and prevented a repeat.
- How do you decide what to test?
- Show judgement: critical paths and tricky logic get thorough tests; simple glue code gets lighter coverage.
- Describe a disagreement in code review.
- Show you can argue with data, accept a better idea, and keep the relationship good.