Effective Ways To Describe Engineering Experience

As a recruiter for top tech companies, I’ve reviewed 1,000+ resumes. You only need to get these 5 sections right to land 6-figure interviews. 1. Positioning Statement Forget the generic “motivated team player” summary. Your top section should tell me in 3 lines: - Who you are - What kind of problems you solve - Where you’ve done it Example: “Backend engineer with 4 years of experience scaling infra at early-stage startups. Shipped distributed systems handling 50M+ requests/day. Currently focused on latency, observability, and developer experience.” If this section is clear, I’ll keep reading.  If it’s vague, I won’t. 2. Experience (But Structured Like a Case Study) Instead of dumping tasks, each role should answer: - What were you hired to do? - What did you actually build or own? - What changed because of your work? Bullet points should reflect results, not responsibilities. Redesigned caching logic → reduced API latency by 47% across 3 services. Led incident response for system outage → cut recovery time by 60%. That’s what hiring managers remember. 3. Company/Team Context Especially if you worked at a large company, give 1 line of context. “Worked on the Ads ML Infrastructure team at Meta, supporting $XXB in annual revenue.” It helps recruiters understand the scale and environment — fast. 4. Projects Section (Optional, but powerful) For newer engineers or people transitioning into tech, 1-2 serious projects can carry a resume. But only if you show real thinking and impact. Instead of: Built a web app using React and Node. Try: Built a budgeting tool used by 800+ users; integrated Stripe and Plaid APIs, reduced error rate to <0.3%. Show that you didn’t just code, you shipped. 5. Skills That Support the Story Don’t list everything you’ve ever touched. List the tools, stacks, and domains that match what you’re applying for. And reinforce them in your bullet points. “Python” in your skills section means nothing if your experience doesn’t prove you’ve used it in real scenarios. Your resume's job isn’t to tell your life story. It’s to get you in the room. If yours isn’t built to convert, it’s time to rethink it. Repost if this helped. P.S. Follow me if you are a job seeker in the U.S.  I talk about resumes, job search, interview preparation, and more. 

I’ve reviewed 4,000+ software engineering resumes over the past few years and I see so many engineers failing to land an interview for the same reason: Their resume looks exactly the same as everyone else’s. I don’t mean stylistically. I love a good plain text resume with bullet points. What I don’t love is seeing nearly word-for-word the same “accomplishments” that don’t make you stand out at all. Which one of these is more likely to get a hiring manager’s attention? 1. “Actively participated in software design and architecture discussions, providing expert guidance and insights to enhance project outcomes and technical strategies.” 2. “Led software design and architecture decisions, enabling a 20% faster go-to-market for key projects and a measurable improvement in system reliability and performance.” Anyone can participate in design and architecture discussions, but what makes YOU effective at these discussions? Can you put a measurement to your effectiveness? While not everything in your workday can be measured, hiring managers are looking for high impact. The next time you update your resume, ask yourself: does this bullet point highlight the unique value I bring to the table? If not, it’s time to rewrite it.

This is one of the most important things I’ve learned about resumes, and most don’t do it. Not doing this can hurt your chances of getting an interview 👇 Your resume 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐞 a description of what you are 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 for. Your resume 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 a collection of your 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐭 to the job you are applying for! Here's a simple example: A Project Manager's resume that describes what they are 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 for looks like this: - Delivered the project on time and within budget. - Communicated updates regularly to all stakeholders. This is a terrible way to "stand out" - In this example, every Project Manager is responsible for delivering projects on time and budget, and for communicating with stakeholders. In other words, there's nothing 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐪𝐮𝐞 about this person's resume. Your resume has to show: - Evidence that you have the experience they are looking for (Tailored resume) - Evidence of the value you bring to the team (Your past accomplishments) To write a resume that 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐭, here’s what you should do 👇 Write 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬, not what you were responsible for : - What did you do? - What was the impact? - How did you accomplish it? Use the “𝐗 + 𝐘 + 𝐙” formula to write accomplishments: “Accomplished [𝐗] as measured by [𝐘], by doing [𝐙]” 🛑 Instead of writing: “Delivered a project on time and budget” ✅ Write this: 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝 [𝐗]: “Launched ____ project” 𝐌𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 [𝐘]: “1 month ahead of schedule and increasing ROI by Z%” 𝐁𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 [𝐙]: “, by creating a new communication process that allowed low and medium risk tickets to be pre-appproved, reducing friction during development” Together X + Y + Z: “Launched ___ project 1 month ahead of schedule and increasing ROI by Z%, , by creating a new communication process that allowed low and medium risk tickets to be pre-appproved, reducing friction during development” 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 help you show that you have the experience companies look for in 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐱𝐭 of a project that had impact to customers, your team or the organization. 𝐓𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 your 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 to the job you are applying to will increase your chances of getting an interview. Adding more colors, graphs and random keywords will not. A few extra tips as you go through your accomplishments: 1. Not every accomplishment will have a number (impact). It’s ok, try to have as many as possible. 2. Accomplishments tailored to the job you are applying to >>>> accomplishments you believe are the most important. 3. You can skip the XYZ formula and instead write them as: Verb in past tense + what you did + the impact it had. ------ 🚀 Need help with your resume or Product Management interviews? Check out my comment below for THE BEST resources 👇 #productmangement #resume

This resume got interviews at Amazon, Elevance Health, Cognizant, Autodesk & here are the reasons why: Strategic Information Hierarchy: - Education First: Master's student (graduated May 2025), placing education at the top is a strategic move. It immediately highlights their advanced qualifications and high GPA (4.00). - Clear Sections: Bolded headers like EDUCATION, SKILLS, and WORK EXPERIENCE create a clean, organized layout that is easy for recruiters to navigate quickly. - Consistent Formatting: The consistent placement of dates and locations on the right-hand side makes the timeline of their experience simple to follow. Quantifiable Achievements Everywhere: Metrics are used effectively throughout the resume to demonstrate tangible impact. This moves beyond simply listing duties and shows concrete results. "Boosted performance by 62% and cut test failures by 78%" "Developed a C++ module handling 1.5M+ events/sec" "Structured SQL databases to efficiently process 1TB+ of input voice data monthly" "Applied Elastic Autoscaling EC2 instances... supporting 10,000+ concurrent users" "Fortified hybrid cloud infrastructure by 30%" "Upgraded Natural Language Processing models... boosting overall accuracy by 20%" Action-Oriented & Tech-Specific Descriptions: - Each bullet point begins with a strong action verb, such as "Engineered," "Deployed," "Containerized," "Fortified," "Integrated," and "Revamped." - Key technologies and frameworks (Python, AWS, Azure, Docker, Pytorch, React, Rust, CUDA) are embedded directly within the descriptions of the accomplishments, showing practical application of their skills. Clear Progression Across Experiences: - The resume illustrates a clear and rapid growth trajectory, starting with an infrastructure-focused internship (AWS Cloud Intern) and progressing through machine learning, open-source development, and coaching. - The most recent roles at Elevance Health and Cognizant show a move into more complex AI and backend engineering responsibilities, demonstrating an ability to quickly learn and take on advanced tasks. I've been lucky enough to have mentors who have shared their resumes with me and I want to do the same for others. Find what VERIFIED resumes landed people interviews at Google, Meta, Microsoft: https://bit.ly/3HKbsOO Not every resume should look like this. I’m sharing it because this is what’s actually working in today’s job market. For me, I never had anyone share their resumes that got interviews at companies. It was always a black box. And if this post helps even one person get a foot in the door, then I’ll keep sharing.