Resume Q&A and Videos

Hello, Taro community, Hope everyone is well! I have been working at a mid-size company as a backend SWE for a little more than 2 years post-grad. I graduated with a BS in CogSci with a specialization in ML and a minor in computer science. My company has announced layoffs for Q4, so I want to prepare myself for starting the job hunt. My current goals are to build 1 or 2 side projects, as my resume seems a little sparse with 1 post-grad experience and 1 internship where I don't remember much from the actual project tech-wise. I will also be working on my resume and technical interview prep. In the current market conditions, would my education be a hindrance and would it be better to go for an MSCS as a non-CS degree holder? I understand the skills are most important, but I am worried about getting past the ATS for most jobs. I do see most job postings require a degree in engineering or equivalent experience, but the equivalent experience is expected to be quite high now.

I have spent 5 years at my current company with this break down of time: 2023-2024 manager for 4-8 people doing web development for internal tools. Some backend platform work in node.js. 2020-2022 Android native development, junior to senior IC, product focus. Some backend node.js work. As an IC I spend tons of time coding, writing design docs, and learning and practicing Android native development. As a manager I have spent 25% time max on learning web development and have been primarily people managing or tinkering with the backend. As an Android engineer I got a big tech offer for a mid level position, but declined. I love Kotlin and feel like I could pick up where I left off with Android at a big tech company mid level, or senior at a start up. Would you agree that is the best approach for my next role? How would you put this on your resume? 4 different roles broken down by level and focus - or if I want to do android next could I have my tag line be "Engineering Manager, Senior Android Engineer" And then in the bullet points under that I could include the fact that I also did some web and backend work, so they can see that wasn't my 100% focus. Also I will say to the recruiter that I've done the most with Android but most recently was not working with it. How would you approach this?

Hi Alex, I recently completed your course, "Get More Interviews: Write a Stellar Resume as a Software Engineer," and found it very helpful! I'd like to use your resume as a template to build my own, but I couldn’t find an editable version included in the course. Could you kindly share it as a Word document or LaTeX file? It would be a great resource to help me implement what I learned.

I'm an engineer with about 4.5 years of experience. I've had 2 jobs since graduating university. The first was a small startup (<10 people) where I did backend engineering and worked like a dog. The second (and current) is a large (~1500 people) company that's far more chill. I've heard, read, and generally understand that recruiters (and probably hiring managers as well) like to see career progression when reviewing resumes. Makes sense. My questions are:

1. rather than calling myself "Backend Engineer" for my first job on my resume, should I say I was a "Junior Backend Engineer"?
2. for my current job, rather than calling myself a "Data Engineer", can I call myself "Senior Data Engineer"? My company isn't technically advanced to the point where they formally use the title "Senior" engineer for anyone (although engineers definitely are paid differently based on tenure, impact, negotiation skills). Hence I feel like I have that lee-way. Heck, it might even be better to arbitrarily take the 3 year block at the company and pick a point around the 2-year mark where I say I became "Senior", so I can have Junior -> Intermediate -> Senior on my resume. There's irony in down-leveling myself for my first job, although I really was junior and titles are fungible. As for up-levelling myself in my current role, isn't the point of a resume just to get an interview? And are people really going to check with my employer and say "aha, caught you! you said you were a Senior Engineer, but really you were an Engineer!" and even if people do, I would imagine it's a small number, that's offset by the upside of demonstrating that progression, even if it is a little messaged' Finally, to address a question that will probably be asked, I definitely feel like I have learned a good deal since I started 4.5 years ago, technically, but more importantly knowing what to work on. Prioritization, time management, etc. Thanks!

I graduated in January 2024 with a Masters in CS and am still looking for my first full time job. I've been doing an unpaid Frontend internship since march and have been volunteering as a Software Engineer (C# and Unity) during my spare time at a local university. Can I include either or both of these experiences to the Work Experience section in my resume? Will having two current work experiences be a red flag? Is it better to remove the Lab work because it isn't directly related to what I want to work on in the future (Full stack web dev)?

Despite having a side project with 4k MAU, I'm not getting any interviews. I am concerned it might be because my current job which is listed first is more QA and not SWE is unimpressive and the recruiters see that and gloss over it. Also in the 2 interviews I got the recruiter/HM tends to overindex on the QA work instead of my project and other more impressive SWE experience My work experiences #2 and #3 are also way more impressive than my current job (which is why I worked on side projects) But I am worried that because my projects are listed all the way at the bottom the recruiter doesnt even see it and I get passed over. But also i'm worried putting the project over experience makes it look weird Questions: Can I put my current work experience all the way at the bottom and my work experience #2 and #3 above? (I know typically people say to sort it form most recent, but in my case my current job is working against me). Is 4k MAU (measured by number of unique visitors) impressive enough? or do I need more in this economy? I've maxed out my organic methods and the only bottleneck is more inorganic advertising via social media and praying to SEO gods Is there maybe a way I can list the project under work experience but kind of say that its not a paid gig? I dont want to get in trouble at work or elsewhere by making it seem like its a paid thing or I am working 2 jobs or something. This is just a solo completely free side project but i put in 800+ commits It would look something like this

Work Experience
Website Name Date
Software Engineer
Built and scaled as a solo free side project: 4k+ MAU, 25k total visits, .....

I'm working as a SWE and the current learning curve at my job is good. However, similar to others, I want my resume to be future-proof, as in, I want my resume to stand out if I'm applying to newer opportunities. People often look at resumes and stay too short or too long at the company. Is it always recommended to switch companies in a couple of years? Or could staying in your current company make you hireable for years? Wanted to know what other folks and EMs think about it.

Normally I list location of every role as City, State right aligned to the company line and then the date in the next line Do I need to keep location? Can not including locations hurt? When is it helpful to not include location?

I have recently started at a new company (full-time) but remain interested in continuing to apply as I am uncertain about how much I can grow here. It has been less than 2 months and I would like to ask the community if it is wise to add this new company on my résumé for new applications. I presume I will have to explain (loosely in the least) anyway to interviewers what I am doing currently... There is not anything ‘toxic’ I am experiencing in particular, just that I want to keep looking. Has anyone been in this situation before? Regardless, I would love some advice and (various) perspectives on how one might go about this discreetly (or at all). Thank you all in advance!

Hi folks, I am working on revamping my resume after going through . It was a beneficial course and I believe I can convert my 2-page resume to 1. For reference: I have nearly 9 years of experience in this industry, worked across two different startup companies. Company 1: 2015-2018 --> Software Engineer 2018-2019 --> Senior Software Engineer Company 2: 2019 - 2021 --> SE II 2021 --> Present --> Senior Software Engineer. If you look through my resume I am kinda at a Senior level for a while :( I know some recruiters do understand that levels at startup/big-tech companies are considered different. Some may think that this person has been at the same position for a while,etc. Question for folks: Can I group my experience with 2015-2019 at Company 1 with resume title as SSE 2019-Present at Company 2 with resume title as SSE? Or I can just skip the title and say, Software engineer? I would like to make sure that it doesn't come off as that I am lying on my resume with my title. I am asking these questions mainly because I would like to fit all the content of my resume on one page.

I've been struggling to put my resume together for new senior/lead front end roles. My current position came through a referral and only needed my resume as a formality so didn't really put thought into it. Now that I'm looking for new roles and going through the application process, I've struggled to get any traction. I've gone through the how to write a stellar resume course here and implemented a lot of that thinking. I believe the one thing I'm missing is metrics. Unfortunately they're hard to get at my company but I've built custom features for large clients who use our platform. Is there a way to get around specifying number of users and what are some other metrics I can use?

In the writing your resume course, I realized it is best to keep the resume simple and non-technical for recruiters to view. I used to have a lot of bullet points like Reduced the runtime by 9x meaning I was able to reduce on average runtime of 45 seconds to 5 seconds. Looking back, I don't think this makes much sense. I also wrote how I improved the time complexity from O(n) to O(1) which I deleted now. What is the best way to write these accomplishments? Is improving runtime even a good data point in a resume? Should I write it to something like improved the runtime of a program from 45 seconds to 5 seconds? Or does improved by 9x make sense here?

Aside from this runtime issue, I'm wondering what are some good metrics in a resume. I realize the number of users is really impressive from Alex's resume, but what are some other good metrics?

Hello Taro community, I would like to understand what is the right way to showcase a future startup idea and prototype in the resume? In experience section or as a side project section? If it is in experience section [as IN PROGRESS/PROTOTYPE STAGE], Is it good to showcase this without even registering the company and have a market value?

Asking for a friend. What are some good resume review and polish services tailored for Software Engineer roles.

Currently I am working as Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft for the past 2 years and looking for change. I have close to 10 years of work experience.
In that period I have worked in 5 companies (including Microsoft).

In the resume, should I mention my entire work experience of 5 years or should I mention only my latest work experience of last 5-6 years (last 2-3 companies) since only the latest experience might be relevant to the companies?

I have been at a company for 2 years. We measure a metric each quarter. For that particular metric should I average it out and mention it on my resume or should I spell it out separately for each quarter?

I have accepted a great new grad offer by every sense of the word and I'm lucky to be in this position. I can't help but want to shoot for the FAANG companies though. I haven't even started my job yet (it starts in around 2 months). How soon is too soon to start interviewing and shopping around for SWE 2 roles at a big name company?

I feel like I can be a high performer at this company

I noticed Alex's resume template doesn't have a skills section? is it needed? I know in the vids he says to not have a "skill soup" and keep it focused. But do I even need a skills section?

Should we bold? What should be bold? Would love to hear thoughts

I'm updating my resume and I want to know if I should put the name of the clients I worked for as a contractor or only the consulting company? I have worked with 3 clients inside this company and the projects were very different between each one.