A software engineer's resume is judged on scope and evidence: how big were the systems, how much of the decision-making was yours, and can you prove it. Language lists are table stakes; they don't differentiate anyone.
The bullet formula
Action + system + technical specifics + measurable outcome. Missing the last part is the single most common flaw in Indian SDE resumes, because appraisal-speak trains people to describe responsibilities.
Worked on the backend team, responsible for developing and maintaining REST APIs using Spring Boot.
Built 14 REST endpoints in Spring Boot for the order service (~1.2M requests/day); added Redis caching and cut p95 latency from 840ms to 190ms.
Scope signals recruiters read for
- Traffic or data volume — requests/day, rows, GB processed, concurrent users
- Team and ownership — 'sole owner of', 'led 3 engineers', 'across 4 squads'
- Money — infrastructure cost saved, revenue enabled, contract retained
- Time — deploy frequency, build time, incident recovery, hours of manual work removed
Service company vs product company
For TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Accenture and similar, the screen weighs client domain, the technology stack, certifications and stability. Name the client industry (banking, insurance, retail) even when NDA prevents naming the client.
For product companies and funded startups, the screen weighs system design exposure, ownership and code quality signals. Depth in one system beats a list of ten.
The skills section for engineers
Group by layer and put the job's stack first. Be specific about cloud services — 'AWS' means little, 'AWS (ECS, RDS, S3, CloudWatch)' means you've operated something.
- Languages — Java, Python, TypeScript (order by real strength)
- Backend — Spring Boot, Django, Node.js/Express
- Data — PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, Kafka
- Infra — Docker, Kubernetes, AWS (EKS, RDS, S3), Terraform
- Practice — TDD, code review, CI/CD, on-call
What to leave out
- Proficiency bars and star ratings — they parse badly and mean nothing
- Every library you've imported once
- 'Agile/Scrum' as a skill, unless you ran the process
- Your 10th and 12th marks, once you have two years of experience
One page or two?
Under five years: one page. Five to ten: two is fine if the second page earns its place. Beyond that, two pages with the last decade in detail and earlier roles compressed to one line each.
Common questions
Should I list my LeetCode or Codeforces profile?
If the rating is genuinely strong (Codeforces Expert and above, LeetCode Guardian, ICPC regionals), yes — it's a fast credibility signal for product companies. A mid rating takes space without adding anything.
Put this into practice
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