CV Software developer

What tech recruiters scan on a software developer CV

• Production systems you shipped — stack, scale, and your specific contribution
• Language depth (not a laundry list): primary runtime, frameworks, and test tooling
• CI/CD ownership, code review habits, and incident response experience
• Security and data-handling awareness for regulated or customer-facing products
• Team model: squad size, agile cadence, and stakeholder types (product, platform, SRE)

Technical skills for a developer CV

Core skills

• API design (REST, GraphQL, gRPC)
• Relational and document databases
• Automated testing (unit, integration, contract)
• Containerisation and orchestration basics
• Observability: logging, metrics, tracing
• Refactoring and domain modelling
• Performance profiling and optimisation
• Secure coding and dependency management
• Infrastructure-as-code exposure
• Code review and pair programming

Tools and methods

• Git
• GitHub Actions
• Docker
• Kubernetes
• PostgreSQL
• TypeScript

Checks relevant to UK software roles

• Right to work in the UK (share code or passport evidence)
• BPSS or SC clearance only if the advert states government/defence work
• Professional indemnity if contracting — cite insurer and cover level
• ICO registration awareness for products processing personal data

Profile examples for software developer CVs

Junior: Full-stack developer with two years building customer-facing web apps in TypeScript and Node.js. Shipped features behind feature flags with 95% unit-test coverage on core modules. Comfortable pairing, writing ADRs, and debugging production issues in Datadog.

Senior: Staff-leaning engineer with nine years across fintech and SaaS. Led migration of a monolith payment service to event-driven microservices, cutting p95 latency by 40%. Mentors three mid-level developers and owns the platform guild on testing strategy.

Experience bullets for developer CVs

Junior examples

• Built a self-serve onboarding flow used by 12k monthly sign-ups, reducing support tickets by 18%
• Introduced contract tests between billing and CRM services, preventing three breaking releases in six months
• Cut build times by 35% by parallelising GitHub Actions jobs and caching Docker layers

Senior examples

• Architected a multi-tenant analytics pipeline processing 2M events/day with sub-minute freshness
• Drove adoption of trunk-based development; production incidents dropped 28% year-on-year
• Presented RFC on zero-downtime migrations adopted across four product squads

Structuring a developer CV for UK hiring

Open with a three-line profile naming your primary stack and domain (e.g. payments, healthtech). Recruiters keyword-scan before reading depth.

For each role, list impact metrics: latency, revenue, users, defect rates. Separate 'Skills' from 'Experience' — tools belong next to the project where you used them.

GitHub or portfolio links are optional; include them only if repos are maintained and READMEs explain the problem solved.

Software developer CV — common questions

Should I list every language I've touched?

No. Lead with two or three you would pass a pairing interview in. Group the rest as 'exposure' if needed.

Do I put university projects on the CV?

Only within two years of graduation and if they demonstrate production practices (tests, CI), not tutorial clones.

Contract vs permanent — different CV?

Same structure; for contracts, emphasise delivery speed, handover documentation, and tech stacks matched to the brief.

ESCO: http://data.europa.eu/esco/occupation/f2b15a0e-e65a-438a-affb-29b9d50b77d1. ESCO CC BY 4.0; ONS ASHE earnings tables; UK right-to-work and BPSS guidance where applicable