Junior Software Engineer Resume Template

An ATS-friendly template designed for new grads and early-career engineers — with the right structure to showcase projects, internships, and technical skills when you don’t have years of professional experience yet.

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Jordan Rivera
jordan.rivera@email.com | (512) 555-0347 | linkedin.com/in/jordanrivera | github.com/jrivera
Summary

Recent computer science graduate with hands-on experience building full-stack web applications and a passion for clean, testable code. Completed two software engineering internships and contributed to open source projects with 200+ GitHub stars. Looking to join a team where I can grow as an engineer while shipping real products.

Experience
Software Engineering Intern May 2025 – Aug 2025
Shopify Toronto, ON
  • Built a bulk product import tool using Ruby on Rails and React that reduced merchant onboarding time from 45 minutes to under 8 minutes, adopted by 3,200 stores in the first month
  • Wrote integration tests for the checkout API using RSpec, increasing test coverage from 62% to 84% across 14 endpoints
  • Participated in weekly architecture reviews and presented a proposal to migrate CSV parsing to background jobs using Sidekiq, which the team shipped in Q4
Software Engineering Intern Jan 2025 – Apr 2025
Stackline Austin, TX
  • Developed a real-time analytics dashboard using Next.js and D3.js that visualized 500K+ daily ad performance events for e-commerce clients
  • Implemented a REST API endpoint for automated report generation using Python and FastAPI, replacing a manual Excel workflow that took the ops team 3 hours per week
Projects
BudgetBuddy — Personal Finance Tracker React, Node.js, PostgreSQL
  • Built a full-stack budgeting app with 140+ active users that categorizes transactions using a custom NLP classifier trained on 10K labeled bank descriptions
  • Implemented OAuth 2.0 authentication and deployed on AWS using Docker and GitHub Actions CI/CD
Contributor — OpenRouter Python SDK Python
  • Merged 3 PRs adding retry logic, streaming support, and rate limit handling to an open source LLM routing library with 1.2K GitHub stars
Skills

Languages: Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Java, SQL   Frameworks: React, Next.js, Node.js, FastAPI, Ruby on Rails   Tools: Git, Docker, AWS, PostgreSQL, Redis, GitHub Actions

Education
B.S. Computer Science 2025
University of Texas at Austin GPA: 3.7/4.0

Writing a software engineer resume with no experience

Projects carry more weight than you think

When you don’t have years of professional experience, your projects section is your experience section. Hiring managers at tech companies know this — they’re not expecting a new grad to have led a team of 10. What they want to see is that you can build something real, end to end. A side project with actual users, a contribution to a real open source library, or even a well-scoped class project demonstrates that you can ship code, not just write it in a textbook.

Put education near the top — but not because of your GPA

As a new grad, your education section should sit high on the page — right after your summary. But the degree itself isn’t what matters most. What hiring managers look for is relevant coursework, capstone projects, and any research or teaching assistant experience that shows depth. If you took a distributed systems course and built a working key-value store, that’s worth mentioning. Your GPA only matters if it’s above 3.5; otherwise, leave it off and let your projects speak.

Internships are real experience — write them like it

A common mistake on junior resumes is underselling internships. “Assisted the engineering team with various tasks” tells a hiring manager nothing. You should write internship bullets the same way a full-time engineer would: what you built, the technology you used, and the measurable outcome. If your intern project got shipped to production, say so. If it saved the team time, quantify it. Internship bullets written with specificity and impact are indistinguishable from mid-level experience bullets — and that’s exactly the point.

Don’t pad with skills you touched once in a tutorial

It’s tempting to list every technology you’ve encountered, but a bloated skills section backfires in interviews. If someone asks you about Kubernetes because you listed it, and all you did was follow a 20-minute tutorial, that’s worse than not listing it at all. Stick to languages and tools you’ve actually built something with. Three strong, honest skills beat fifteen aspirational ones.

Key skills for junior software engineer resumes

Include the ones you actually have. Leave out the ones you’d struggle to discuss in an interview.

Technical Skills

Python JavaScript TypeScript Java React Node.js SQL Git Docker REST APIs HTML/CSS PostgreSQL

What Entry-Level Interviews Focus On

Data Structures Algorithms Object-Oriented Design Version Control Debugging Unit Testing Basic System Design Problem Decomposition Code Readability Communication

Recommended template for entry-level engineering roles

Classic resume template preview

Classic

For entry-level engineers, the Classic template is the best choice. It’s clean, scannable, and ATS-safe — which matters when you’re competing against hundreds of applicants for new grad roles. Recruiters at large tech companies process thousands of entry-level resumes during hiring season, and a simple serif layout makes it easy for them to find what they need fast. Save the creative formats for when you have more experience to fill them with.

If you’re applying to startups or design-adjacent teams, the Modern template (with teal accents and a sans-serif font) is a good alternative. But when in doubt, Classic is the one that never raises eyebrows.

Use this template

Related reading

Resume Example
Junior Software Engineer Resume Example That Got Hired
A complete, annotated resume for a junior SWE. See how to compensate for thin experience with strong projects and impact-driven bullets.
 Resume Tips
Will recruiters penalize you if your resume sounds AI-generated?
Most recruiters can spot an AI-generated resume — and many will reject it. Here’s what actually triggers suspicion.
 Resume Tips
Why ChatGPT ruins your resume formatting
ChatGPT can write decent bullets, but the formatting it produces is a mess. Here’s what goes wrong and how to fix it.

Frequently asked questions

What should I put on a software engineer resume with no work experience?
Focus on projects, open source contributions, and internships. A personal project with real users or a merged PR in a popular library is more impressive to most hiring managers than a generic internship. Include the tech stack, what the project does, and a measurable outcome if you have one. If you have relevant coursework or a capstone project, those count too.
Should a junior software engineer resume include a GPA?
Only if it’s above 3.5. A strong GPA can be a positive signal for new grad roles, especially at larger companies that use it as a screening criterion. If yours is below 3.5, leave it off — no one will ask, and a strong projects section speaks louder than a number.
How long should a junior software engineer resume be?
One page, no exceptions. You don’t have enough experience to justify two pages, and a two-page resume from a new grad signals that you can’t prioritize — which is the opposite of what you want to convey. Every line should earn its place.

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