Resume writing

Developer Resume Rules

1. Resume Structure

Section Order

Section	Required	Purpose
Contact Info	Yes	Name, email, phone, GitHub, LinkedIn
Summary	Yes	2-3 sentence career overview
Skills	Yes	Technical skill inventory
Work Experience	Yes	Reverse chronological career history
Projects	Optional	Notable side/open-source projects
Education	Yes	Degree, institution, graduation year
Certifications	Optional	Relevant professional certifications

Formatting Principles

• Keep to 1-2 pages maximum — prioritize relevance over completeness
• Use consistent formatting (fonts, spacing, bullet style) throughout
• Left-align all content — avoid center-aligned body text
• Use clear section headings with visual separation
• Avoid tables, columns, or complex layouts that break ATS parsing
• Save as PDF to preserve formatting across devices
• File name format: {Name}_Resume_{YYYY}.pdf

ATS (Applicant Tracking System) Compatibility

• Use standard section headings (Experience, Skills, Education)
• Avoid headers/footers for critical information
• Do not embed text in images or graphics
• Use standard fonts (sans-serif preferred)
• Include keywords from the job description naturally in context

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2. Experience Description

STAR Method for Each Bullet Point

Element	Description	Example
Situation	Context or problem background	Legacy monolith causing 30-min deploy cycles
Task	Your specific responsibility	Led migration to microservice architecture
Action	What you actually did	Decomposed into 12 domain services with event sourcing
Result	Measurable outcome	Reduced deploy time to 5 min, 99.9% uptime achieved

Writing Rules

• Start every bullet with a strong action verb (Designed, Implemented, Optimized, Led, Migrated)
• Quantify results wherever possible (%, time saved, throughput, users, cost reduction)
• Focus on impact and outcomes, not just tasks performed
• Limit to 3-5 bullet points per role — prioritize most impactful contributions
• Use past tense for previous roles, present tense for current role

Action Verb Categories

Category	Verbs
Building	Designed, Developed, Implemented, Built, Created, Engineered
Leading	Led, Managed, Coordinated, Mentored, Directed, Supervised
Improving	Optimized, Refactored, Improved, Reduced, Streamlined, Enhanced
Analyzing	Analyzed, Evaluated, Investigated, Diagnosed, Identified
Delivering	Deployed, Delivered, Launched, Released, Shipped, Migrated
Collaborating	Collaborated, Partnered, Facilitated, Contributed, Supported

Quantification Examples

Weak (task-focused)	Strong (impact-focused)
Wrote unit tests	Achieved 85% code coverage, reducing production bugs by 40%
Managed database	Optimized slow queries, reducing P99 latency from 3s to 200ms
Worked on API development	Designed RESTful APIs serving 50K+ daily active users
Participated in code reviews	Reviewed 200+ PRs, establishing team coding standards
Helped with deployment	Automated CI/CD pipeline, reducing deploy time from 2h to 15min

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3. Technical Skills Organization

Skill Categorization

Category	Examples
Languages	Kotlin, Java, TypeScript, Python
Frameworks	Spring Boot, React, FastAPI
Databases	PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB
Infrastructure	Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, AWS/GCP
CI/CD	GitHub Actions, Jenkins, ArgoCD
Messaging	Kafka, RabbitMQ, NATS
Monitoring	Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry
Tools	Git, IntelliJ IDEA, Jira, Confluence

Skill Presentation Rules

• Group skills by category, not by proficiency level
• List only skills you can discuss confidently in an interview
• Prioritize skills mentioned in the target job description
• Include version numbers only for major frameworks (e.g., Spring Boot 3.x)
• Omit outdated or irrelevant skills (e.g., jQuery for a backend role)
• Do not rate skills with stars, bars, or percentage — they are subjective and unhelpful

Skill Relevance Filtering

• Always include: Skills directly mentioned in the job posting
• Include if relevant: Skills from the same ecosystem or complementary tools
• Omit: Skills unrelated to the target role or tech stack

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4. Project Description

Project Entry Structure

Project Name | Role | Duration
Brief description (1-2 sentences)

- Technical decisions and rationale
- Your specific contributions
- Measurable outcomes or impact
- Tech stack used

Project Description Rules

• Lead with the business problem or goal, not the technology
• Clearly distinguish your individual contribution from team effort
• Highlight technical decision-making (why you chose X over Y)
• Include scale indicators (users, data volume, request throughput)
• Link to live demo, GitHub repo, or documentation when available

What to Highlight in Projects

Aspect	Why It Matters
Problem definition	Shows you understand business context
Architecture choice	Demonstrates technical judgment
Trade-off analysis	Shows you evaluate alternatives, not just build
Scale and impact	Provides concrete evidence of capability
Lessons learned	Shows growth mindset and self-reflection

Project Selection Priority

• Projects that align with the target role's tech stack
• Projects where you made key architectural decisions
• Projects with measurable business impact
• Open-source contributions with community engagement
• Side projects that demonstrate initiative and learning

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5. Anti-Patterns

• Listing every technology ever touched — curate for relevance
• Copy-pasting job descriptions as experience bullets
• Using vague phrases ("various tasks", "responsible for", "helped with")
• Including personal information (age, photo, marital status, religion)
• Lying or exaggerating — interviewers will probe claims in detail
• Using the same resume for every application — tailor per role
• Focusing on duties instead of achievements
• Writing paragraphs instead of concise bullet points
• Including references or "References available upon request"
• Using first person pronouns (I, me, my) in bullet points