Introduction

What is this

Our Software Engineer Resume Handbook is the fastest and most efficient way to improve your Software Engineer resume (or create one if you don't have one yet). There are many existing resources regarding writing a good resume but they are mostly generic and not specific to Software Engineers. Software Engineer resumes are read by technical recruiters and hiring managers (who are/were Software Engineers) and hence require a tailored technical approach.

A resume consists of the following aspects:

• Content: Your past experiences, achievements and impact
• Presentation: How you convey your experiences, achievements and impact
• Formatting: Visual appeal, layout and flow

While we cannot change your past experiences, achievements and impact, we can help you to present them in the best manner possible using a visually appealing format that does justice to your experiences and abilities.

The handbook explains the most important areas which make up a great Software Engineer resume — what you need to look out for, common mistakes, show you positive examples. You should be able to go through all the content under an hour.

With this resume handbook, you will know what it takes to make a technical resume ready for FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google) and improve your resume to be FAANG-ready. This knowledge combined with our FAANG-ready Resume Templates, you will be done creating or revamping your resume within hours.

Who this book is for

This book is suitable for anyone applying for software engineering/technical jobs, regardless of seniority and experience. Most of the content will be useful to the general technical audience, but there are sections which are tailored for specific demographics like undergrads and experienced engineers.

Who we are

We are a team of ex-FAANG software engineering hiring managers who have screened thousands of applications, interviewed hundreds of candidates and seen the best and worst of them. We know what makes a Software Engineer resume great and also the common mistakes which makes the resume bad.

We personally know many candidates (some of which are our close friends) who are great technically (cruise through the technical interviews at Google and Facebook) but never even got the chance to interview. Why? Their resume doesn't adequately convey their technical abilities and experience and they frequently end up getting rejected during the screening stages, it's a huge pity.

With our help, they managed to improve their resume such that they got past the resume screening stage at famous tech companies and eventually got hired. This handbook is a culmination of our years of experience of helping Software Engineer resumes live to its full potential.

How to use

If you have bought our FAANG-ready Resume Templates, you can choose the layout you like best and transfer contents from your existing resume into the template. If you have bought our Resume References, you should look through them and get a good sense of what made these resumes stand out and shape your resume in a similar manner where relevant.

If you prefer to stick with your existing templates, that's totally fine, just make sure your resume follows the general guidelines and does not make the common mistakes.

Read through each page of the handbook, tweak your resume for each section according to our recommendations. You should not need to spend more than 15 minutes on each section with the exception being the Work Experience section, which is the meat of your resume.