Software Engineer CV example
Lead with impact and scale. Recruiters scan for systems you built, languages, and measurable outcomes.
Sample professional summary
“Software engineer with 5+ years building reliable, high-traffic web services. Shipped features used by millions, cut p95 latency 40%, and mentored 3 junior engineers.”
Key skills recruiters look for
- TypeScript
- React
- Node.js
- PostgreSQL
- AWS
- CI/CD
How to write strong bullet points
- Start each bullet with an action verb (Built, Led, Reduced).
- Quantify impact: %, latency, users, revenue.
- Name the stack only when it's relevant to the role.
Software Engineer career path & typical salary
How the role typically progresses, with the kind of responsibilities and approximate US base-salary range at each stage.
0–2 yrs
Ships well-scoped tickets with guidance, writes tests, learns the codebase and review process. Focus is correctness and learning velocity.
2–5 yrs
Owns features end to end, breaks down ambiguous work, debugs production issues independently, and reviews peers' code.
5–8 yrs
Leads design of systems across services, sets technical direction for a team, mentors, and is accountable for reliability and trade-offs.
8+ yrs
Drives architecture and standards across multiple teams, de-risks the hardest problems, and aligns engineering with business strategy.
8+ yrs
Owns delivery, hiring, and growth for one or more teams; trades hands-on coding for people and execution leadership.
Salary figures are approximate US market estimates for general guidance only. Actual pay varies widely by location, industry, employer, education and negotiation.
Common Software Engineer interview questions
Practice structured answers (situation, action, measurable result) — the same achievements belong on your CV.
- Walk me through a system you designed — what were the constraints and what would you change now?
- Tell me about a production incident you owned. How did you detect, mitigate, and prevent recurrence?
- How do you decide between shipping fast and investing in code quality or refactoring?
- Describe a time you disagreed with a technical decision. How did you handle it?
- How do you approach testing — what do you unit test vs. integration test, and why?
- Estimate and design a URL shortener (or similar): data model, scaling, and failure modes.
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