Review and improve a software engineer resume: impact metrics, bullet point strength, skills section, ATS optimization, and targeting a specific role. Use when reviewing or writing your own resume.
Resume content or target role: $ARGUMENTS
Format: 1 page (< 5 years), 2 pages max (10+ years)
Order: Contact → Summary (optional) → Experience → Skills → Education → Projects
Goal: Pass the 30-second skim AND the detailed read
Recruiter scan order:
1. Current/recent title and company
2. Bullet impact numbers
3. Skills/tech stack
4. Education
Formula: [Strong verb] + [what you did] + [measurable result]
WEAK bullets (no impact):
- "Worked on the recommendation engine"
- "Fixed bugs in the payment service"
- "Responsible for backend development"
STRONG bullets (verb + result):
- "Redesigned recommendation engine query pattern, reducing P99 latency from 2.3s → 340ms"
- "Identified and fixed a race condition in payment processing that caused $50K/month in duplicate charges"
- "Led migration of monolith to 5 microservices, enabling independent deployments and 40% faster CI runs"
- "Implemented Redis caching layer reducing MongoDB load by 60% and cutting infrastructure cost $3K/month"
Strong verbs by category:
Built/shipped: Architected, Built, Designed, Implemented, Shipped, Launched, Developed
Improved: Optimized, Reduced, Improved, Accelerated, Streamlined, Automated
Led: Led, Mentored, Managed, Coordinated, Drove, Championed
Analyzed: Investigated, Debugged, Diagnosed, Identified, Discovered
Saved: Reduced, Eliminated, Saved, Cut, Prevented
If you don't have exact numbers, estimate with confidence:
Latency: "reduced average latency from ~800ms to ~200ms"
Scale: "service handling 50K+ requests/day"
Cost: "reduced infrastructure cost by ~$2K/month"
Team: "collaborated with 6-person team"
Coverage:"increased test coverage from 40% to 85%"
Time: "reduced deploy time from 45 minutes to 8 minutes"
Types of metrics to include:
- Performance: latency, throughput, error rate
- Scale: users, requests/sec, data volume
- Business: revenue, cost, conversion rate
- Developer experience: build time, deploy frequency, time-to-merge
- Reliability: uptime improvement, incidents reduced
Group by category, list most relevant to target role first:
Languages: JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, Go, Rust
Backend: Node.js, Express.js, NestJS, GraphQL
Frontend: React, Next.js, TailwindCSS
Databases: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, Elasticsearch
Cloud/DevOps: AWS (ECS, RDS, Lambda), Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, GitHub Actions
Testing: Jest, Playwright, Pytest
What NOT to include:
- Microsoft Office, HTML (too basic)
- Outdated tech: jQuery, PHP 5 (if you're targeting modern roles)
- Skills you couldn't be interviewed on (Kubernetes if you've only touched it once)
Applicant Tracking Systems scan for keyword matches.
1. Mirror language from the job description:
JD says "Node.js" → use "Node.js" (not "NodeJS" or "node")
JD says "CI/CD pipelines" → use that exact phrase
2. Use a clean, parseable format:
- Single column preferred
- No tables, text boxes, or graphics (ATS can't parse these)
- Standard section headers: "Experience", "Skills", "Education"
- PDF format (preserves formatting) or plain text
3. Include all relevant technologies in bullets AND skills section
4. Check ATS score: jobscan.co or similar tools
## Resume Review: [Name / Role]
### Impact (1-5)
Bullet strength, quantification, specificity
### Relevance (1-5)
Match between experience and target role
### Clarity (1-5)
Readability, conciseness, grammar
### Technical Depth (1-5)
Shows engineering skills, architecture decisions, scale
### ATS Readiness (1-5)
Format, keywords, standard headers
---
### Rewrites
For each weak bullet:
BEFORE: [original]
AFTER: [improved version with impact]
### Top 3 Priorities
1. [Most impactful change]
2. [Second priority]
3. [Third priority]