How to talk about impact as a jr swe?
I'm jr/mid level SWE and heres my dilemma:
How do I quantify impact when im working in large companies owning very small portions of the project?
rn im working on a massive migration project to upgrade a framework we use. This is a 8 month long project + has about 20 engineers
I myself have little to no impact on the company as a Jr SWE.
- I know some metrics on the business impact of this migration, but that is the overall project. It feels shady to use this impact of the entire project in my resume because it gives zero signal on my ability as an engineer. as in whether I'm high or low performer this makes 0 difference on the cost saved to the company for this specific migration.
- Also probably shouldnt be sharing internal metrics on projects in the resume? Not sure if i would be breaching any NDA here tbh
- I'm struggling how to quantify the impact that would provide signal on my engineering quality? (Code quality/velocity/technical complexity), Like it feels like the things that get you promoted are not what gets you passing the resume screen
Discussion
(3 comments)- 024 days agoTech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
You should use the impact of the entire project, but you also need to have more details about what specifically you did to contribute to the project. A good interviewer will try to dig deeper on what role you had in the proejct. So you want to be able to answer questions like:
- What choices did you make? Were those the right decisions?
- Did you influence the direction or roadmap of the project?
- Did you help another engineer with something like delegation, code review, testing, etc.
The above questions are the types of impact you should also be talking about. For internal metrics:
- Ask others on the team (or former colleagues) what they shared publicly. You can often get inspiration this way.
- You can try the tactic of "Shipped a project which led to $XX million in additional annual revenue."
- Talk about another metric that is impressive but can be safely shared publicly. e.g. something like "Reduced latency in onboarding flow by 30%"
- 024 days agoSoftware Engineer [OP]Taro Community
Thanks Rahul, I did apply the suggestions mentioned, but the feedback I got was that my work experience for my current role looked like the 1000s of other mid level Java SWEs who worked at a large company.
There was nothing that stood out as impressive for that work experience
So my follow up is what traits/experiences should I highlight or seek out that would make my current experience stand out as a top 10% resume when it comes to screening resumes as a jr/mid level SWE?
In other words what are things that stand out when screening for mid level engineers (outside of projects/OS)?
I already do perform quite well at work so I believe its a phrasing issue so any advice is appreciated!
- 024 days agoTech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
I do think it's challenging to stand out when you're given a small part of a much larger project, especially when you're earlier in your career. There may not be much scope to show leadership, delegate, or even make choices.
You may have more ability to showcase your unique ability in other areas. Perhaps you could take the initiative to lead another project, e.g. an internal tool. Or you could take the initiative to go above and beyond in code review or testing.
In terms of phrasing, I highly recommend the resume course. Use strong verbs, and follow this framing: "Accomplished [X] as measured by [Y], by doing [Z]"
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