9 Full Stack Developer Resume Examples & Writing Guide for 2023

As a full stack developer, you’ve learned to do it all. You’ve mastered at least one server-side scripting language and know your way around client-side too. You’re a database technologies pro and up-to-date on the latest languages and frameworks. Now you’ve got to take all that and put it on your full stack developer resume for recruiters to see. But that’s easier said than done.

When you throw your resume between 100s of other resumes, you’ll start noticing how difficult it really is to stand out.

Anyone who wrote a “Hello, World!” program (in any language) will call shotgun for the language proficiency within their resume.

You’ll have to demonstrate in depth that you know what you’re talking about. But, at the same time, writing a 3+ page resume will risk you rejection too.

Writing a full stack resume is like walking on thin ice - you try too hard, and you fail, you try less, and you look lazy.

But, don’t worry!

We’ve prepared this guide to give you exactly what you need to win that job and have attached full stack resume samples too!

Once you finish reading this guide, you’ll find your resume completely reinvented.

Full Stack Developer Resume Samples

Java full stack developer resume example

• Choose the right layout. If you’ve been building a career for more than a decade, you might have a lot of information to pack into a small space. Choosing a double-column layout for your resume can be effective in saying a lot without overcrowding.

• Categorize your skills. As a full stack developer, you have a long list of technical skills in different categories. Putting them in groups makes your resume look more organized and easier for recruiters to read.

Entry level full stack developer resume example

• Choosing to include your GPA. In most cases, your GPA is not necessary on your resume. However, if you have an exceptionally high one and you’ve recently graduated from school, it can be a good way to leverage your knowledge in the field.

• Certifications to fill in the gaps. Getting certified in particular skills can help give you an advantage if you’re lacking industry experience. It shows commitment to the job and an investment in your career.

Senior full stack developer resume example

• Highlight your best work history. If you’re applying for a senior position, you probably have a lot of experience to draw from. Instead of squeezing in as much as you can, focus on roles most relevant to your target job and list your greatest achievements.

• Keep your education section basic. An education section generally includes only the school, degree, and years attended. If you graduated many years back, you may even choose to omit them. Your experience is what recruiters want to see for senior positions.

Junior full stack developer resume example

• Tailor your resume to the target job. Study your target company and research their tech stack. Listing the same technologies on your resume will help you stand out among other qualified candidates.

• Focus on accomplishments, not duties. Hiring managers know what a full stack developer does. They want to know what you can bring to the role. Use real data, figures, and awards to show evidence that you will impact success at their company.

Python full stack developer resume example

• Including soft skills as strengths. This candidate creates a section to expand on their greatest strengths. Soft skills are open to interpretation and you don’t want to leave anything to chance. Provide examples so recruiters know exactly what you mean by “time management.”

• Choose a customized job title. Picking a niche can give you an advantage when competing with a ton of other qualified candidates. Tailoring your job title to the role you’re applying for will catch the recruiter’s eye right away.

Angular full stack developer resume example

• Adding sections for other projects. You might have experience outside of traditional work history that speaks to your industry skills and abilities. Adding a separate section for projects, publications, or even hobbies can help you stand out.

• Make a good impression with your summary. Catch the attention of recruiters quickly with a strong summary. Concisely and professionally summarize your industry experience, a major accomplishment, and the impact you’ll bring to the new role.

.NET full stack developer resume example

• Include a link to your portfolio of work. Hiring managers will want to see other projects you’ve worked on before extending an offer. Add a link to your portfolio or LinkedIn profile in your header for quick and easy access.

• Tell a story with your work history. Companies want to see that you’re invested in your work and dedicated to growth. Structure your work experience in a way that shows growth and accomplishments over time.

React full stack developer resume example

• Tell your target company how you’ll help them. Research your target company and find out their needs and biggest issues. Use your resume to show how you can provide solutions. Include similar achievements you’ve had in previous roles.

• Optimize readability. Resume content is important, but so is the structure. Don’t let your resume end up in the trash because it was difficult to read. Make it appealing to recruiters with formatting, fonts, and colors that are clear and easy on the eyes.

We hope those resumes inspired you!

That’s a great first step.

How to write a great full stack developer resume

Being a full stack developer doesn’t give you the license to whack a hiring manager with everything you know technically.

Instead, you should try to focus on showcasing that you’re the right “T-shaped” full stack dev for the job.

And, if you aren’t being careful enough, your resume might just say “I copy and paste code from Stack Overflow blindly and deploy it to production”.

Your resume has to provide context appropriate information to show hiring managers that:

• You know the programming languages (server-side, client-side) and database technologies the role expects you to work on
• That you don’t cost them a century worth of refactoring once you write a module
• You’ve learned a lot and grown throughout your work experience
• Blind “Cmd + C” from Stack Overflow is not the way you code
• How you work with a team, and that you help others become better at their work

The real challenge in writing a full stack developer resume

If you were to write a full stack resume a decade ago, you pretty much were covered just by ensuring that you’re LAMP stack proficient in your experience, summary, and skills.

Full stack used to be small, and usually implied a precise set of skills. Now, the definition of “full stack” is way bigger than before.

Take the simple movement of LAMP -> MEAN. That simple change implies that someone should be proficient with:

1. Architecting modular front ends using Angular, Express
2. Can optimize CDN
3. Tweak hardware layers for faster rendering
4. Write scalable architecture on AWS
5. Knows security layers

So, how do you convey a huge amount of information with your tiny resume?

Are you going to write a resume summary of 10 lines? Or, should you cram everything under your work experience?

That is the real challenge!

Solution: start with the right resume layout

You’ve got three standard resume layouts to select from:

1. Functional layout
2. Reverse chronological layout
3. Hybrid resume layout

The best option for your full stack developer resume is the hybrid resume layout. Read more about why it is better than other resume layouts here.

Next thing that you should know is what resume sections to consider for building a full stack resume.

Let’s get started with the first section of your full stack developer resume that recruiters will see.

Writing a good full stack developer resume header

Honestly, a full stack resume header needs just 5 critical things:

1. Name
2. Contact (email and phone number)
3. Location
4. GitHub, NPM, or Stack Overflow links
5. Personal blog link

While this may seem like a tiny detail, it helps you connect with the right employer.

When you add a personal blog or a portfolio link, you help them dive into a bit more about you.

Jeff Atwood of Stack Overflow once wrote that “If your Stack Overflow reputation is less than 125, and you’re a developer, you bring shame to your family.”

That’s how important those links really are to a hiring manager.

Here are a few full stack developer resume samples that show you the difference.

2 .NET full stack developer resume header samples

What’s wrong with this example:

• No portfolio link
• Shows entire address instead of city and state
• No contact information

This example shows just a few small changes that make a big difference.

If you want more ideas for stand-out resume headers, read through our guide Perfecting Your Resume Header so You Get Noticed.

Writing a good full stack software developer resume objective or summary

Believe it or not, but there’s a COBOL code somewhere out there that’s going to outlive you in production.

Still, technology is ephemeral - your hiring manager knows that well. Full stack developers have to work with quickly evolving technology parts.

That’s why they’re concerned. They don’t want to hire someone who is going to fall short with the pace of change technology brings.

And, that’s why your resume summary shouldn’t reflect “my code will be unmaintainable after Angular 9.”

Instead, you should highlight that throughout your professional working experience, you’ve continued to grow and learn new systems and technologies.

It’ll be highly convincing for a hiring manager if they can see that you quickly adapt to technology changes and mastered building high performing systems and using them.

You can do that simply by adding the following to your full stack developer resume summary:

1. Mention the front-end, back-end, and database technology that you’ve worked on
2. Make sure these technologies/frameworks are relevant to the role
3. Add details to showcase the scale of your experience and your business achievements

The full stack resume summary examples below will show you the difference between using a good vs bad resume summary.

Full stack developer resume samples - summary

What’s wrong with this example:

• General terms with no quantifiable definition
• No specific accomplishments or achievements

A good resume summary should look something like this:

Much better!

This example uses industry specific terms and mentions an award the candidate earned in their field.

For more tips on crafting an attention-grabbing resume summary, check out our guide Resume Summary: How-To Guide (30+ Examples You Need To See).

How to include full stack developer experience on your resume

After reading your attention-grabbing summary, a hiring manager will want to dive deep into your work experience.

That means, you need to step back and see what programming languages the job demands.

Now, don't worry if you don't know all of these languages or frameworks. You still have a chance if you can show you learn quickly.

You resume skills will prove that.

But for now, let's take a look at a couple of resume experience section examples.

2 full stack developer resume samples - experience

Let’s say you’re going to send your resume to John, the (fictional) COO of Intercom. You wrote your resume experience like this:

There are a couple of problems with this resume experience example.

First, to a hiring manager it would feel as if the candidate hasn’t put any effort into listing what they did.

Second, if you’re an experienced developer, this resume experience will get you rejected when it is placed between 100s of resumes.

Writing a ReactJS based application with NodeJS and MongoDB could mean a lot of things when you don’t give it context.

A hiring manager would usually try to get the following context from your experience section:

1. What was the quality of the front-end that you built? (Lighthouse score)
2. What aspects of the work were you truly passionate about? (front-end, back-end services, databases, etc.)
3. What did you actually learn and implement there?

Let’s rewrite this example into a version that gives hiring managers a better idea of what you’ve achieved.

What an improvement!

On average, a full stack developer handles more than 10 responsibilities and handles 5+ projects (big and small) in a year. To make sure you write the best work experience here, you need to pick your best 5 to make the cut.

Now let’s look at an example for a java full stack developer.

2 java full stack developer resume samples - experience section

What’s wrong with this example:

• Lists generic tasks and responsibilities
• No specific data or figures cited
• No industry software or programming languages mentioned

Not only will you win an interview call with such a full stack resume experience, but you appear as one of the most promising candidates too.

It really drives your full stack resume to perfection when you add job specific skills.

For more ideas on how to create an actionable resume experience section, check out our guide: How to Describe Your Resume Work Experience.

Let’s take a look at some resume skills in the next section.

36 most important full stack developer resume skills that you may want to add

You have some (or all?) of them. All you need is a little inspiration. So, here’s a list of technical and soft skills that you might want to add to your resume:

While soft skills are a must-have for senior full stack developer job seekers, they carry importance on an entry level full stack resume too.

So, make sure to add some (or all) of the soft skills that you see below.

Are you still not sure what skills will win recruiters over? Check out our guide on How to Create A Resume Skills Section To Impress Recruiters (+10 Examples You Need to See).

Other sections for your resume

Depending on your industry, experience, and seniority, there are more sections that you can consider adding to your resume.

Sections like hobbies, volunteer work, and publications allow you to step outside the standard resume format and show some personality.

For example, if we were asked to list a side project that’s all about scheduling app, there are better ways than just listing out the project specifics.

We can talk about how product development, requirement analysis, design and planning was a critical part of the project in addition to the technical details.

Doing that helps you plan on other applicant’s weaknesses and make your resume stand out.

Even sections for language skills or certifications can make a big impact.

If you still have more to say and aren’t sure where to fit it onto your resume, consider whether or not a cover letter is a good fit for the full stack developer job you’re applying for.

Your key takeaways for writing a great full stack developer resume:

• Focus on building a hybrid resume with less than 1 page, or a max of 2 pages

• Add a resume header and make sure to have your GitHub/Stack Overflow/personal blog links in it

• Total years of experience, tech skills, and proud achievements should be in your resume summary

• Show that you not only know what the role demands, but you’ve consistently learned and grown within your professional working experience

• Make a separate section for your resume skills and add both technical and soft skills to it

• Consider adding separate sections for recognitions, achievements, and certifications