// ATS OPTIMIZATION GUIDE: SOFTWARE ENGINEER

Software Engineer ATS Resume Guide

Keyword and formatting guidance for a single-column software engineer resume optimized for Greenhouse and Lever. Tech stack highlights, action verbs, and structure advice.

// SEMANTIC KEYWORDS

Recommended Skills & Keywords

Crucial entities parsed by ATS screening filters.

ReactTypeScriptNode.jsSystem DesignCI/CDAWSPostgreSQLDockerREST APIsGraphQL
// POWER ACTION VERBS

Strong Impact Action Verbs

Replace weak statements with these high-velocity verbs.

ArchitectedDeployedOptimizedRefactoredScaledAutomatedImplementedDesigned
// PARSING PITFALL

Common Formatting Mistake

Avoid this to keep your CV parser-compliant.

Using tables, multi-column tables, or progress percentage bars to list coding skills. Standard ATS parsers read across rows rather than columns, merging unrelated skills, while graphic bars are completely ignored.

// STRUCTURE ADVICE

Layout Design Directions

Best practices for organizing content sections.

Create a dedicated Technical Skills section grouped by category (Languages, Frameworks, Developer Tools) and place it near the top of the resume. For experience bullets, always start with an action verb and end with quantifiable results.

// STRATEGY CHECKLIST

3-Step ATS Optimization Plan

Action steps to raise your ATS match score rating.

  1. 1

    Isolate technical keywords and place them in a clean comma-separated list.

  2. 2

    Ensure the contact header has no text inside templates or footers.

  3. 3

    Export the final output as a clean, text-based PDF rather than a scanned raster image.

// TEST YOUR CV

Check Your CV for Software Engineer Roles

Scan your resume against ATS filters to get a score breakdown.