Software Engineer CV example

A free example, with real achievement bullets and the skills recruiters look for

Engineering CVs get screened fast, and the first thing a hiring manager or recruiter looks for is evidence, not adjectives — what you built, what stack you used, and what changed because of it. A list of languages with no context behind them reads like a course syllabus, not a track record.

What recruiters look for on a Software Engineer CV

Specific technologies, not just categories — “React, TypeScript, PostgreSQL” tells a reader something; “modern web technologies” doesn’t.
Evidence of ownership — did you build a feature end-to-end, lead a migration, or just contribute to a larger effort? Say which.
Impact in terms an engineering manager cares about: latency, uptime, cost, time saved, bugs reduced, or user-facing metrics.
Signal that you can work with others — code review, mentoring, cross-team projects — not just solo output.

Example achievement bullets

These are the kind of specific, quantified bullets worth building your own experience section around — adapt the structure (action → scope → result), not the exact wording, to your own background:

Good example bulletRebuilt the checkout service's payment flow, cutting p95 latency from 800ms to 210ms and reducing failed-transaction support tickets by 34%.

Good example bulletLed the migration of a legacy monolith's auth module to a standalone service, used by 6 downstream teams, with zero production incidents during rollout.

Key skills to include

Python
TypeScript
React
SQL
AWS or GCP
CI/CD
System design
Git
Testing / TDD
Agile / Scrum

Only list skills you can genuinely speak to in an interview — a skills section is a set of claims, not a wishlist.

Which template to use

Minimal or Corporate templates tend to suit engineering CVs well — clean, dense, easy to scan for a technical recruiter comparing you against a stack list. FreeShelf renders your details live across all 250 designs, so you can compare several before deciding — there's no need to commit up front.

Free ATS Score checker included: once you've built your Software Engineer CV in the Studio, run it through the built-in ATS Score tool to check structure and, optionally, compare it against a specific job description — entirely in your browser.

Build your Software Engineer CV

Start from these examples and fill in your own details across 250 designs — free, no account, no watermark, nothing uploaded.

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