Enough To Get Hired? Software Developer CV Review (from A Senior Dev)

Hi folks, De here. And today we are back with another developer CV review. This developer is a junior to mid-level developer that has a very common struggle between software engineers right now, which is they don't have enough experience, right? We we are seeing a senior only or a senior preferred market where companies prefer senior software engineers, senior front-end, senior full stack engineers. And there are very few positions for junior and mid-level. So, the question I will be answering while I'm reviewing the CV is, how can you expand or how can you squeeze the experience you've got? And how can you build a CV that gets you angle interviews even if you don't have enough experience? Let's just look at the first other CV at a high level. Uh we see we've got one position as a software engineer, then we've got the position as a full stack developer right here. Then we've got a communicator, marketing communicator. So, this is a student that kind of probably did a boot camp or similar. We have here web development, yeah, in Sweden, she did a uh kind of a higher vocational school. Looks like two years vocational school in web development and in 2020 until 2023, so that was June 2023. And then she got a position in Berlin, right? Before that, she was doing communication. Okay, sounds fine. So, um, let me start with the beginning. I mean, in terms of length, the CV it's good. Um given that we are in a, let's say, senior first market, uh I believe these two positions can be expanded. Okay? And I will go in depth on how to expand and improve these positions. Uh all the focus in the CV should be around here, around this part. The professional experience and not on the things she's the she did before, right? Because that's kind of distracting and it doesn't help her. Now, let me read the summary that she's got here. Okay, so full stack engineer with two years of successful software delivery experience. Experience, coupled with a background in communication and journalism. This is not something we like to talk about because it just doesn't help. It just tells me it's it's very non relevant, let's say, to a software engineering position and on top of that, it makes this developer in particular sound like they don't have enough tangle depth.

maybe they do. But again, ideally, uh we can use this space, for example, to say, you know, full stack engineer with two years of successful delivery experience, focused on building, you know, uh microservices with JavaScript, right? I mean, I just made this up. But we could use this space to talk about tech, okay? And that's the first thing she should change. The other thing is, we've got full stack here and we have software engineer engineer here. I'll talk about that, but full stack engineer with two years of successful experience that can come across as not specialized enough, right?

And if you tell me um you know, front end engineer with two years of successful software delivery experience, that's even better. So ideally, we should remove the full stack and focus even if she's been working on the full stack, if she's better in the back end, then go to the back end, to the market as a back end engineer or go to the market as a front end engineer, but don't get stuck in between.

I think full stack it's credible after let's say at least four, three to four years of writing code, ideally five to seven, right? So before that, people will doubt your full stack abilities. They'll be like, okay, I mean you spend three years on the full stack. So if we split those things evenly, you are a one-year experienced front end developer and a one-year experienced back end developer. And who wants a one-year experienced developer? Nobody, right? So I think this weakens her value proposition. And as for the engine part, again, if you are in the US market, you know, Canada, or even Australia, I think engineer can work, uh, but if you are in the European market, ideally developer, it's better used.

So I would rather go for a either front-end developer or back-end developer. Even if it was 50-50, just pick the one she likes the most in this case and go ahead with that. Like CV is pretty well structured, so that that's that's pretty okay. I love the this is actually the template that we used to offer in our free community. If you we will drop the link probably in the YouTube comments. If you want the template, just drop a comment and uh we will add it in the description if we still have it available.

Okay, this is a very clean, very nice uh CV for a developer. Now, proficient in JavaScript, TypeScript, Node.js and React, seeking a role as he software engineer, right? This is not this is way too generic, right? So we're not going to talk about this. Well, I can apply my proven abilities to ship scalable, resilient features and deliver valuable innovation for the business. I mean, this feels like very generic.

So instead of having something generic, I would directly take this out. I mean, it doesn't really add anything. And the other thing is seeking a role. Now, I mean, there is this stereotype that good software engineers are always employed and they are never seeking roles. So, instead of adding this, I would not add it all together. Okay, I'll just keep it. I'm not saying this is a fair stereotype or anything, I'm just saying it doesn't help her in this specific case.

The other thing is, full stack engineer, so I'd rather go for a backend developer or a front end developer. And if we have two years of successful software. If we have only two years of experience, right, which you mentioned here, maybe experience is not something you want to lead with. Maybe we want to maybe talk about a a project that we are being proud of or if she joined a startup, this this looks like a kind of for smaller company.

We can talk about a contribution, about a certain feature that she delivered, right? Do not, for example, if you don't have a lot of experience, do not sell experience. But if you have, for example, a startup experience, that means you probably had a lot of ownership, or you've probably seen things that developers at bigger companies. Even though they can see this enterprise level software, they don't really touch, get a lot of things done. And in a startup you are a lot closer to the implementation.

So I would rather sell that, and I wouldn't focus too much on experience. Because compared to the market, two years experience is very little compared to the average of the market, or at least what the market claims, okay? I would say around right now, most developers will say they have around three to five years. So she's definitely, if she tries to compete, if she tries to talk about experience too much, she will not be very competitive in respect to other people around.

So, first of all, I would change this. You know, if I would work with this student, I would probably tell them, what are you better at? And if she did enough back end, I'll probably tell her to focus on the back end, the reason being the front end market right now, it's quite competitive. Not saying you cannot compete, but you have a lot more, a lot higher interviews, and you have a lot more competition in the front end than in.

back up. So, the way this would look like it's backend developer are proficient in JavaScript, TypeScript and Node.js, and then I would say, um, something like cloud, if she's touch anything, experience on the cloud with AWS and Jenkins, interested in microservices and building, you know, uh scalable backend application. So, what I'm saying there is I'm I'm adding the infrastructure experience, which is very helpful for a backend developer and I'm saying, hey, I have experience with this very specific backend technologies. And uh that will make her if if they have something like that, will make her one of the top candidates. Now, if she's got experience with like SQL, uh Mongo not so much because Mongo is a bit tutorialish, but I would definitely add that as well. Right? So whatever builds a stronger backend engineering profile, I would add it. Okay? But I would not stay in the full stack and I would not mention the years of experience. Okay, now let's move on with the uh professional experience part, right? So, first of all, again, here, uh this is full stack developer and software engineer, I would actually say backend developer and backend developer, right? Imagine, imagine having a CV where you have backend developer and backend developer. This would look a lot better. And the only thing I'll do here, it's change all the full stack to the backend. Again, be consistent. I love what she did here, but for example, this is great, I would specify the number of features. So, I would add numbers, be specific, successfully deliver over 50 or over 30 25, something credible, right? Just count roughly at a high level the number of sprints she's been part of or with. The number of features she helped deliver, but definitely be specific. And um try to add more of those things. So, we have here a technical technical delivery, which is great. So, if you are a you know, if you have less than 6 7 years experience, you should definitely focus on your technical contribution and just the other contribution. You should have like one, two bullet points about like the things like working in a team, doing documentations, programming sessions. Stuff that shows like for example, what she did here. So, I mean, this is great and this is great, but they kind of repeat themselves. And look at this, I mean, half of her experiences kind of soft skills. So, again, we're going back to the same fewer that

somebody reading this. The thing unconscious feeling is that she doesn't have enough technical experience, which she has. I'm sure, like I'm sure in doing this time. She did a lot of stuff. She interacted with a lot of different pieces of the application, but she's not talking about them, right? And even this part, part of a multiple cross functional focus group, this is not this is still soft. So I would actually maybe take this out. Uh this is good ensured maintain uh outstanding service levels by production to periodic bug fixing and appropriate text coverage.

This is good. She could be a bit more specific. And I would and and those two bullet points, the last ones, they kind of repeat themselves. Cuz like contributed hands on in a team of 10 developers, this is way too much. I know this is a startup, uh but this should be a mistake. And this is a red flag. Uh I would probably drop it to her immediate team. Even if the stand up was like 10 people, I would probably talk about three to five people.

I would also include maybe the QA and whatever the designer um a 10 developer team sounds like the company wasn't very professional. It's not her fault, maybe that's the truth. But companies, you know, whenever you go past five developers, ideally professional, a professional product owner manager should kind of break that team into professional management, right? So, this is a red flag. Um I like this.

I mean, she has AWS experience. You see? Uh I would definitely specify the services she's got experience with and talk about this add at the top, again, because this builds into her backend skills. Okay? And again, here we have one, two, three, five bullet points. Uh we are going to take I would get rid of at least one, at least this second part, but that's what one of those, I would actually take them out and merge the both of them and add around four to five technical bullet points.

Talking about specific backend features or specific things that she helped, whether it's backend documentation, whether it's some cloud, whether it's some certain pipelines, testing, whatever it is. Um this position should be double, okay? At least, okay? And probably the same happens here. So, uh here started out as, no, we're not we don't want to mention the summer intern because that goes back to, I mean, don't say that, you know, you're not lying.

Okay? If they ask you, you know, how did you cite it and if they're very specific, She can talk about it. But what was your how did you start in this position? She can talk about yeah, I started as an intern and then I got I I became a back end engineer, right? But I would not mention it. If she transitioned from intern to full-time employee, I would kind of put everything in one bucket. It's already little experience she's got. I mean, we are in July, so she's got over two years now.

And and that's another thing I wanted to talk about. So, first of all, this communicator stuff goes out. Why? Because this is a software engineering CV. It's not relevant at all. And it actually makes people focus and she might believe, and I understand why she did it, first of all because it's she's probably proud of it. It's the stuff she studied, she probably likes communicating. And she probably likes software as well.

But again, we cannot send two messages in one CV. The message would benefit her the most in the current market. It's a very specialized back-end engineer, right? And a very specialized engineer doesn't use the space in the CV to to talk about this stuff. It's just distracting, I would not I would take it out directly, and then expand these two positions as much as she can. Uh, the new API managed to reduce Rose database, number of storage full above.

Uh, I think this is good stuff, but maybe reducing rows, I mean, maybe just just tell me what what was the improvement, exactly, okay? Uh, and if she wants to be specific about implementation, she can talk about it. Intern has later fall, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This goes out. I would actually start with this, delivering full stack features or back end features, working in close collaboration with the team, with the frontend team, for example, and specific stakeholders.

This is good, but again, what's missing here again, is just specific back end features. And I talk with a lot of developers and I help them, personally help them to build their CVs and do this kind of tweaking. Uh, and what I would advise her if we were to work together is to really sneak down and think about even small things, tenkle things that she helped and just add everything to the CV. So, for example, if she was in the back end, it could be, you know, if she created any kind of deployment pipeline, if she extended an API, if she tested an API, if she helped with her, you know, if she implemented the authentication in a certain API, if she optimized a data structure.

And given that she was an intern, she probably had lot of freedom. So she could even try to not make things up, but she could try to add a lot of things into this space, a lot of stuff that she knows, maybe that she kind of touched over there, in order to expand this. But all in all, these two two positions should occupy, um, in terms of like graphical, should occupy the first page of the CV at least, and they could expand even on the second.

Okay, so that's amazing. Uh, so far, so good. I'm going to move on just for the sake of this video. But again, I would expand these suppositions and uh kind of get rid of the stuff that's not relevant. Let's move here. Um, because she's got this web development education, which is August 2021 and June 2023. So it feels like when she was doing that education, this was the second part of her education, actually, I would, you know, I would actually take out this and include this into her work experience.

So add just I would definitely add June 2021. Okay? Uh if this was a mixed program where she was like working and studying at the same time, we are in a market where, you know, that would easily add one extra year to her CV. And that would increase her chances exponentially. So I would basically change this to 2021 and get rid of the the don't add it as education, but add it as professional experience.

And describe it in a way, you know, that it's basically focusing on the tangible experiences she's got, right? So people don't see it as education, but they see the the experience, the professional experience part she's got, right? So definitely take out keep the communication part and just say, hey, you know, I studied communication until 2018. Then I realized, you know, I love communication a lot, uh, but what I also like is software. I was building a lot of stuff.

So I'm also a full developer, you know, and I got my first job. Uh I got like a into a mixed program where I was kind of working and studying at the same time in June 2021. Okay? That would be a great story and it would again expand and add more experience. The biggest blocker a developer like this, like her in this case, would have is the lack of experience. definitely expand this part. Technologies I would actually move the technologies to to here and in the other I'll focus on rest APIs, microservices, things like this.

Uh but I think there's a lot of space for her to expand here and I'm sure. Like I would add the difference here is to add not only the the languages and technologies, but all the little tools she's been working with. So, you know, AWS, S3. Maybe I bet she sells some docker. Okay? For sure if she worked in the back and there's some docker, I bet she sells some swagger, some open API standards, all that stuff I would have loved to add.

This is great, good knowledge, I mean, I would say uh native proficiency I'll probably translate this good knowledge, good knowledge to something like professional knowledge like something that But it's it's just fine, it's great. She she speaks a lot of languages, so definitely, you know, she should be very interesting add-on to Scandinavian companies or even to to German companies or to worldwide companies that are remote that want to expand in those markets.

Uh this is nice so it shows that she has a a nice life uh besides writing code. That's about it for today. I hope this was helpful. If you people on YouTube are interested into me um reviewing your CV as well. Just let us know and uh we might in one of we might create a giveaway where I can give away like two or three CV reviews for uh you know, just one of our subscribers. We still thinking about how to do that because, you know, we have a lot of stuff to do besides that.

Again, I hope this CV helped you and if you are interviewing right now and you are looking for a way to not only improve your CV, your tinkle CV your CV, but also your ability to deliver in interviews and to do tinkle interviews. Then uh check out the tinkle assessment we have in the comments, it will help you understand where you're at and what are your tinkle gaps for you to fix them before you face the interview.

With that being said, I hope you enjoyed this. I hope you got value and I'll see you in the next one.