You’re an expert in your field, but you’re not just an engineering whiz—you’re also a skilled manager who oversees complex projects from start to finish.
Your in-depth engineering knowledge and leadership skills make you a highly desirable candidate in the job market. However, you’ll need to use a professional resume template that shows off your abilities and credentials to get the job you deserve.
That’s where we come in. We’ll help you save time with our engineering manager resume examples and cover letter writing tips. Read up and score your dream job!
Related resume examples
What Matters Most: Your Knowledge of Engineering & Management Skills
Ranging from your expertise in various CAD software, such as SolidWorks and AutoCAD, to your knowledge of process optimization and automation tools, you’ve got everything you need to excel in your role.
Since your technical acumen is so broad, it makes sense to focus on it in this part of your resume. Include job skills that are key in your field, such as your background in working with semiconductors and the software that helps you on a daily basis.
You can also add any skills that show you’re an effective manager. Be as specific as you can, though; for instance, instead of listing “management” as one of your skills, dig deeper and specify “process optimization” and “budgeting.”
9 most popular engineering manager skills
- Microsoft Project
- Jira
- AutoCAD
- SolidWorks
- Financial Analysis
- ANSYS
- Primavera P6
- Resource Management
- Scrum/Agile
Sample engineering manager work experience bullet points
You’ve got years of work experience under your belt and an impressive career to boot. The road it took to get where you’re at right now is filled with achievements, so it’d be a waste to focus on your daily routine work when you can zone in on your accomplishments instead.
Gather some of the KPIs you’re already tracking and pick those that are career-defining. Perhaps you’ve led a $5M engineering project where you oversaw a team of 25 engineers, and still managed to deliver it 20% under budget?
Or maybe you drove a 19% reduction in operational costs through strategic resource allocation. That’s brag-worthy stuff, so don’t be shy and throw it in!
Here are a few samples:
- Utilized Microsoft Project to create detailed project schedules, resulting in a 29% reduction in project completion time
- Leveraged QlikView to analyze performance metrics, driving data-driven decisions that resulted in a 34% improvement in GPU efficiency
- Negotiated and secured a $3M budget for innovative R&D projects, leading to the development of two patented technologies
- Oversaw a team integration initiative post-merger, successfully merging two engineering teams and retaining 98% of key talent
Top 5 Tips for Your Engineering Manager Resume
- Talk about your career path
- Most people don’t become managers right out of college, so emphasize the road you’ve been on and where you started. Talk about your achievements as a junior engineer and the subsequent growth that led you to where you are today.
- Technical expertise is key
- Even though your work may often revolve around managing teams, deadlines, timelines, and budgets, at the core of it all, you’re still one skilled engineer. Highlight this in your resume by discussing using advanced software like Matlab for data analysis or SolidWorks for 3D CAD design.
- Mention the financials
- Engineering projects are highly complex and can deliver tangible improvements in many fields, but if there’s one thing they’re not is low budget. As such, budget management is key to your resume. Discuss the size of budgets you’ve managed, resource allocation, or stakeholder negotiation to show how you were able to keep things cost-effective.
- Showcase your project management
- Running successful engineering projects means working with people. While it’s best not to list skills like “leadership” or “teamwork” in your resume, show off your collaboration in your work experience bullet points.
- Tailor your resume to match the job
- With engineering experience like yours, you might have recruiters reaching out to you on LinkedIn on a daily basis. However, to get the job you really want, make sure to tailor your resume to match the job description and show that you care about the role.
Typically, it’s best to be concise and limit yourself to a single-page resume. As an engineering manager, if your career spans more than ten years, you can extend this to two pages.
At this point, your work experience speaks volumes, and certifications may become less important, but it’s still good to include them. This includes critical certs like the PE, PMP, and CEM, but also things like Certified ScrumMaster (CSM).
You can, but you don’t have to. Use a career summary to emphasize your background in engineering and management. Mention the company by name to score some brownie points!
