Software engineer: resume, follow-up and interview guide.

Resume lines to adapt

Replace each bracket with something true. If you don’t have a number, leave it out rather than guess.

• Built [feature] used by [users or teams] in [language / stack]
• Reduced [latency / errors / build time] by [amount] by [what you changed]
• Reviewed code and mentored [number] engineers on [area]

Your day-five note

Hi [Name],

I applied for the Software Engineer role on [date]. I recently shipped [real project], which lines up with what your team is building.

Thanks,
[Your name]

Questions to prepare for

1. Walk me through a system you designed.
2. Tell me about a bug that took a long time to find.
3. How do you decide when code is good enough?
4. Describe a disagreement in code review.
5. What would you improve about your last team's process?

Practice these out loud in a mock interview.

Your first 30 days

• Get the code running locally and ship one small change
• Read the docs and recent incident notes
• Meet the people who depend on your team

More role guides