One of the specific CV challenges you might face is articulating your diverse programming skills in a manner that stands out to potential employers. Our guide provides expert tips on structuring your CV effectively, ensuring that your technical expertise is highlighted and easily navigable.
- Applying the simplest CV design, so that recruiters can easily understand your expertise, skills, and professional background;
- Ensuring you stand out with your header, summary or objective statement, and a designated skills section;
- Creating your CV experience section - no matter how much expertise you have;
- Using real life professional CV examples to enhance the structure and outline of your profile.
If you still have no muse to write your professional CV, find some more industry-leading examples.
Structuring and formatting your developer CV for an excellent first impression
The experts' best advice regarding your CV format is to keep it simple and concise. Recruiters assessing your CV are foremost looking out for candidates who match their ideal job profile. Your white space, borders, and margins. You may still be wondering which format you need to export your CV in. We recommend using the PDF one, as, upon being uploaded, it never alters your information or CV design. Before we move on to the actual content of your developer CV, we'd like to remind you about the Applicant Tracker System (or the ATS). The ATS is a software that is sometimes used to initially assess your profile. Here's what you need to keep in mind about the ATS:- All serif and sans-serif fonts (e.g. Rubik, Volkhov, Exo 2 etc.) are ATS-friendly;
- Many candidates invest in Arial and Times New Roman, so avoid these fonts if you want your application to stand out;
- Both single and double column CVs can be read by the ATS, so it's entirely up to you to select your CV design.
PRO TIP
Use bold or italics sparingly to draw attention to key points, such as job titles, company names, or significant achievements. Overusing these formatting options can dilute their impact.
The top sections on a developer CV
- Contact Information to ensure easy communication.
- Technical Skills to highlight relevant expertise.
- Work Experience to showcase industry involvement.
- Education and Certifications to establish formal background.
- Projects and Portfolio to demonstrate practical experience.
What recruiters value on your CV:
- Highlight specific programming languages, frameworks, and technologies you are proficient in, emphasising those most relevant to the job you're applying for.
- Detail past projects and contributions using quantifiable achievements, such as efficiency gains or any notable features you developed.
- Include your involvement in any open-source projects or contributions to public code repositories like GitHub to showcase your commitment to collaborative development.
- Focus on your problem-solving skills and provide examples of innovative solutions you've devised or complex challenges you've overcome in your programming career.
- Mention any continuous learning or professional development activities, such as attending conferences, workshops, or completing relevant courses and certifications.
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Making a good first impression with your developer CV header
Your typical CV header consists of Your typical CV header consists of contact details and a headline. Make sure to list your professional phone number, email address, and a link to your professional portfolio (or, alternatively, your LinkedIn profile). When writing your CV headline , ensure it's:
- tailored to the job you're applying for;
- highlights your unique value as a professional;
- concise, yet matches relevant job ad keywords.
You can, for examples, list your current job title or a particular skill as part of your headline. Now, if you decide on including your photo in your CV header, ensure it's a professional one, rather than one from your graduation or night out. You may happen to have plenty more questions on how to make best the use of your CV headline. We'll help you with some real-world examples, below.
Examples of good CV headlines for developer:
- Senior Software Engineer | Agile Methodologies | Cloud Solutions Expert | CI/CD | 10+ Years Experience
- Junior Web Developer | Full-Stack Aptitude | JavaScript & React Enthusiast | Certified Scrum Master | 2 Years Experience
- Lead Android Developer | Mobile Innovation | Kotlin Specialist | User-Centric Design | 8 Years Industry Insight
- Mid-Level Python Developer | Data Analysis & AI Focus | Flask & Django Proficiency | 5 Years Practical Knowledge
- Senior DevOps Engineer | Infrastructure Automation | AWS Certified | Kubernetes & Docker | 12 Years Progressive Experience
- Full-Stack Developer | MERN Stack | Agile & Lean Principles | Scalable Web Architecture | 7 Years Crafting Code
Catching recruiters' attention with your developer CV summary or objective
Located closer to the top of your CV, both the summary and objective are no more than five sentences long and serve as an introduction to your experience. What is more, you could use either to entice recruiters to read on. Select the:
- Summary, if you happen to have plenty of relevant experience. Feature your most impressive accomplishments and up to three skills that are relevant to the job you're applying for;
- Objective, if you're just starting your career off. Provide your career goals and answer how you see the role you are applying for will match your professional growth.
Judging which one you need to add to your developer CV may at times seem difficult. That’s why you need to check out how professionals, with similar to your experience, have written their summary or objective, in the examples below:
CV summaries for a developer job:
- Seasoned software engineer with over a decade of experience in the tech industry, specialising in full-stack development using JavaScript, React, and Node.js. Recognised for leading the successful launch of a scalable e-commerce platform that increased company revenue by 30% within the first quarter of its inception.
- Adept mobile application developer with 7 years of experience in crafting intuitive Android apps using Kotlin and Java. Pioneered a cross-functional team in the delivery of an award-winning health and fitness app that garnered over a million downloads and a 4.5-star rating on the Google Play Store.
- Emerging from a career in financial analysis, an astute professional with profound quantitative skills now pursuing a transformative path into software development. Brings to the table robust analytical abilities and a fervent commitment to learning programming languages like Python and C# to solve complex problems in a new realm.
- Dynamic marketing strategist transitioning into the tech industry with a focus on user experience design. Expertise in customer journey mapping and data-driven decision-making, now seeking to leverage a passion for technology by developing user-centric interfaces and experiences with a strong grasp of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript fundamentals.
- Aspiring software developer with a palpable zeal for technology and problem-solving. Desirous to apply my foundational knowledge in Python and Java, coupled with a recent certification in Full Stack Web Development, to architect robust software solutions that propel business innovation and growth.
- Eager to embark on a career in game development, bringing forth a lifelong passion for gaming combined with self-taught Unity and C# programming skills. Keen to leverage academic projects and personal game prototypes to contribute to creating engaging and immersive game experiences.
The best formula for your developer CV experience section
The CV experience section is the space where many candidates go wrong by merely listing their work history and duties. Don't do that. Instead, use the job description to better understand what matters most for the role and integrate these keywords across your CV. Thus, you should focus on:
- showcasing your accomplishments to hint that you're results-oriented;
- highlighting your skill set by integrating job keywords, technologies, and transferrable skills in your experience bullets;
- listing your roles in reverse chronological order, starting with the latest and most senior, to hint at how you have grown your career;
- featuring metrics, in the form of percentage, numbers, etc. to make your success more tangible.
When writing each experience bullet, start with a strong, actionable verb, then follow it up with a skill, accomplishment, or metric. Use these professional examples to perfect your CV experience section:
Best practices for your CV's work experience section
- Quantify your achievements where possible, such as "Developed a feature that improved app performance by 20%," to demonstrate the impact of your contributions.
- Highlight key technologies used in each role with phrases like "Implemented responsive designs with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript," to show your technical expertise.
- Describe projects worked on in terms of problem, solution, and outcome, like "Led a team to create a custom CMS by identifying client needs, developing a tailored solution, and enhancing content management efficiency by 35%."
- Include any experience with modern development methodologies, for instance, "Adopted Agile workflows, increasing team sprint delivery rate by 40%."
- Focus on collaboration and teamwork by citing instances such as "Partnered with cross-functional teams to streamline the deployment process, cutting release times by half."
- Mention any open-source contributions or personal projects that showcase additional skills, for example, "Contributed to open-source projects such as [Project Name], strengthening my expertise in [Technology]."
- Detail experience with version control systems like "Managed version control with Git, reducing code conflicts and rollbacks, thus improving codebase stability."
- Point out problem-solving capabilities with specifics such as "Resolved critical system crash incidents, slashing downtime from hours to minutes."
- Address experience in code reviews and adhering to coding standards with "Enforced best practices through rigorous code reviews, maintaining high standards for a 10+ developer team."
- Led the development of a new React-based single-page application that improved the user experience for over 500,000 customers.
- Optimised application performance leading to a 30% decrease in loading times and a 20% reduction in server costs.
- Mentored a team of 5 junior developers, increasing the team's overall productivity by 40% through best practice training and code reviews.
- Implemented a microservices architecture for a large-scale financial platform, handling over £20M in transactions per month.
- Developed and managed a CI/CD pipeline using Jenkins and Docker, reducing the release cycle time from 4 weeks to 1 week.
- Created an innovative feature for the internal CRM that boosted sales team productivity by 25%.
- Engineered a bespoke inventory management application using Node.js and MongoDB, supporting a 15% increase in operational efficiency.
- Integrated third-party APIs into the existing system that expanded customer payment options and increased completed transactions by 20%.
- Initiated unit testing practices which reduced critical bugs at launch by 95%.
- Developed a custom Java application for real-time data analysis which processed over 1TB of data daily.
- Collaborated cross-functionally to gather requirements, resulting in the delivery of enhanced features that raised customer satisfaction by 30%.
- Automated repetitive tasks using Java-based scripts, saving the team approximately 200 hours of manual work per year.
- Designed and launched a cross-platform mobile application using Xamarin that was downloaded over 100,000 times in the first six months.
- Involved in the end-to-end lifecycle of feature development, from conception to deployment and monitoring user engagement metrics.
- Improved the codebase maintainability by introducing modular programming practices and reducing technical debt by 40%.
- Spearheaded the design of a new SQL database schema that enhanced data retrieval times by 50% for critical business reports.
- Implemented robust data backup and recovery protocols, ensuring 99.9% data integrity and high availability of business-critical systems.
- Conducted extensive data analysis and reporting functions that supported strategic business decisions and contributed to a 10% increase in annual revenue.
- Completed an immersive development project, building a fully responsive website that achieved a 98% customer satisfaction rate.
- Collaborated with the design team to implement UI/UX best practices which resulted in a 40% increase in website traffic.
- Rapidly fixed bugs and performed troubleshooting tasks, contributing to a stable and reliable user experience.
- Assisted in the development of a new feature for an established codebase, leading to a 15% increase in user engagement.
- Supported the team in code refactoring efforts, which improved system performance and scalability, handling 10,000+ concurrent users.
- Participated in weekly agile sprint meetings, providing insights that consistently helped in meeting deployment deadlines.
Swapping your professional experience (when you have none) with skills and more
Never underestimate the importance of relevancе when it comes to your developer CV. Even if you don't happen to have much or any standard (full-time contract) professional experience, this doesn't mean you shouldn't apply for the role. Instead of a bespoke CV experience section:
- Showcase more prominently any internships, part-time roles, and volunteer experience that are applicable to the role and have taught you job-crucial skills;
- Feature a strengths or achievements section with your transferrable skills or talents you've obtained thanks to your work or life experience;
- Write an objective statement that clearly outlines your values as a candidate and defines your career ambitions;
- List your education or certificates that match the job profile closer to the top of your CV.
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PRO TIP
If applicable, briefly mention a situation where things didn’t go as planned and what you learned from it, demonstrating your ability to learn and adapt.
Describing your unique skill set using both hard skills and soft skills
Your developer CV provides you with the perfect opportunity to spotlight your talents, and at the same time - to pass any form of assessment. Focusing on your skill set across different CV sections is the way to go, as this would provide you with an opportunity to quantify your achievements and successes. There's one common, very simple mistake, which candidates tend to make at this stage. Short on time, they tend to hurry and mess up the spelling of some of the key technologies, skills, and keywords. Copy and paste the particular skill directly from the job requirement to your CV to pass the Applicant Tracker System (ATS) assessment. Now, your CV skills are divided into:
- Technical or hard skills, describing your comfort level with technologies (software and hardware). List your aptitude by curating your certifications, on the work success in the experience section, and technical projects. Use the dedicated skills section to provide recruiters with up to twelve technologies, that match the job requirements, and you're capable of using.
- People or soft skills provide you with an excellent background to communicate, work within a team, solve problems. Don't just copy-paste that you're a "leader" or excel at "analysis". Instead, provide tangible metrics that define your success inusing the particular skill within the strengths, achievements, summary/ objective sections.
Top skills for your developer CV:
Programming Languages (e.g., JavaScript, Python, Java, C#)
Web Development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript)
Frameworks (e.g., React, Angular, Vue.js, .NET, Django)
Database Management (SQL, NoSQL, MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL)
Version Control (Git, SVN, Mercurial)
API Development & Integration (REST, SOAP, GraphQL)
Cloud Services (AWS, Azure, GCP)
Containerisation (Docker, Kubernetes)
Software Testing (Unit, Integration, End-to-End)
Agile Software Development Methodologies
Problem-Solving
Teamwork
Communication
Adaptability
Time Management
Attention to Detail
Creativity
Critical Thinking
Perseverance
Continuous Learning
PRO TIP
If there's a noticeable gap in your skillset for the role you're applying for, mention any steps you're taking to acquire these skills, such as online courses or self-study.
Listing your university education and certificates on your developer CV
The best proof of your technical capabilities would be your education and certifications sections. Your education should list all of your relevant university degrees, followed up by their start and completion dates. Make sure to also include the name of the university/-ies you graduated from. If you happen to have less professional experience (or you deem it would be impressive and relevant to your application), spotlight in the education section:
- that you were awarded a "First" degree;
- industry-specific coursework and projects;
- extracurricular clubs, societies, and activities.
When selecting your certificates, first ask yourself how applicable they'd be to the role. Ater your initial assessment, write the certificate and institution name. Don't miss out on including the completion date. In the below panel, we've curated relevant examples of industry-leading certificates.
PRO TIP
If there's a noticeable gap in your skillset for the role you're applying for, mention any steps you're taking to acquire these skills, such as online courses or self-study.
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Key takeaways
Write your professional developer CV by studying and understanding what the role expectations are. You should next:
- Focus on tailoring your content to answer specific requirements by integrating advert keywords through various CV sections;
- Balance your technical know-how with your personal skills to showcase what the unique value would be of working with you;
- Ensure your CV grammar and spelling (especially of your key information and contact details) is correct;
- Write a CV summary, if your experience is relevant, and an objective, if your career ambitions are more impressive;
- Use active language by including strong, action verbs across your experience, summary/objective, achievements sections.
