As a budding software engineer, you’re all set to join one of the world’s highest-paying professions. You’ve already got the know-how, including an innate understanding of complex algorithms and a curiosity to dig through endless lines of code in order to make the software work flawlessly.
All you need now is a job to test-drive your skills, but it might be easier to create an app or a game than it is to write a cover letter and express those abilities in a one-page resume.
This is why we’re here. Our software engineer new grad resume templates helped devs like you emphasize their worth and begin their careers on a great note. Check out our resume examples and tips to jumpstart yours!
Why this resume works
- Landing a job as a software engineer with no real work experience can feel like bailing out a swimming pool with a spoon. Yet, you can quickly change your fate by sprucing up your software engineer new grad resume with a tailored career objective.
- While you want this statement to summarize your goals for the role and align with the hiring company’s needs, go the extra mile to weave in your strengths and qualifications. Let’s say, you’ve served as a software engineer intern and steered a college project to success. Briefly mention how these experiences empower your suitability for the job.
What Matters Most: Your Programming Skills & Coding Experience
From designing software and planning it out, to then coding and debugging it, you’ve got a skillset that’s in high demand in today’s world. No matter if you’re more into front-end or back-end development, there’ll be jobs out there waiting for you.
Pro tip: as a software engineer, go all-in on technical skills in this part of your resume. While you need to be an excellent communicator who performs well in a team, your future employer is more interested in your knowledge of programming at this stage.
Talk about the programming languages you’re well-versed in, such as Python or JavaScript, as well as various frameworks, like Django and React, and the software you use in your daily coding endeavors.
The content of this section will vary based on your field, so adjust these skills as needed, but keep them highly specific.
9 best software engineering new grad skills
- Java
- Visual Studio Code
- MySQL
- Python
- Git
- Django
- PyCharm
- AWS
- Jira
Sample software engineering new grad work experience bullet points
If you’re a fresh graduate, you may think you don’t have a lot to include in the “work experience” section. Don’t worry, though, because you’ve already got plenty to talk about, be it from college projects or from internships.
Again, this is a good place to be specific. Use quantifiable metrics to showcase your impact on the projects you’ve participated in.
Instead of saying a dull “database management,” go for something that stands out more, such as “optimized database queries, resulting in a 13% reduction in server response time.”
Remember that these bullet points may come up in your technical interview, so ensure you choose things you feel comfortable explaining if you’re asked.
Here’s how to show off your past experience:
- Improved database performance by optimizing MySQL queries, boosting query response times by 11% and reducing server load by 15%
- Utilized Git for version control in a team of 9 developers, resulting in a 17% reduction in merge conflicts
- Refactored legacy Python codebase, improving code readability and reducing regular maintenance time by 8%
- Optimized a website for mobile using Angular, increasing traffic from mobile devices by 14% over the course of 3 months
Top 5 Tips for Your Software Engineering New Grad Resume
- Make each resume unique
- As a recent graduate, start out strong by showing recruiters that you’ve studied the job description carefully. Update your career objective, work experience bullet points, and skills to try and match the role.
- Show off your portfolio
- Try to maintain a diverse portfolio that showcases the full range of your skills. If you know how to build apps and websites, add a good selection of both, and don’t forget to emphasize your knowledge of frameworks like Node.js or Vue.
- Don’t overlook debugging
- Writing code is heaps of fun, but as a junior software engineer, you’ll spend just as much (if not more) time reading code, looking for issues, and debugging. To express this, mention times when you’ve improved code readability, reduced instances of bugs, and participated in code reviews.
- Sometimes less is more
- You may be tempted to fill your skills section to the brim, but the truth is that you should only include the languages and frameworks you feel comfortable with. It’s okay if you’re not great at Python but you’re awesome at JavaScript—focus on the latter to show what you’re really proficient in.
- Don’t neglect your toolkit
- Your many tools are important, so add them to your resume to express that you’re job-ready. This can include things like Git, Docker, various IDEs, and cloud platforms, such as AWS and Azure.
As a new grad, employers won’t expect you to have prior experience outside of your education in computer science, software engineering, and similar fields. Instead, talk about the college projects and internships you’ve participated in and what they involved.
Save the space for your technical skills as they’re much more important. Instead, demonstrate your ability to work in a team and cooperate with stakeholders or clients in your “work experience” section.
A cover letter can be really helpful. Prepare a new one for each job and tailor it to match the company, highlighting your passion for coding. It takes more time, but it’s time well spent.
Stephen is the co-founder and CEO of BeamJobs. He started his career in data fulfilling the dream of little kids everywhere: working for an insurance company. He then moved on to work in edtech for a company called Chegg before venturing out to start BeamJobs. Things have come a long way after countless “learnings” (fancy word for mistakes), and BeamJobs has now helped 2.5M+ people create their perfect resume. Stephen and BeamJobs have been featured on awesome sites like Business Insider, Chicago Tribune, Dallas News, Baltimore Sun, the Daily Press, Zendesk, HubSpot, and loads more.
