How to Look Like an Engineer

I recently worked with someone applying for a Software Engineer role, but their resume looked more like that of a BI Engineer. He needed to rework his experience bullets. Here’s an adjusted version to protect his privacy, but this is what he initially had:

[Original Example]

Consulting Firm - Software Developer (07/21 - 08/22), Hyderabad, India

- Developed ETL pipelines with SQL and ETL tools.

- Worked on BI projects with PowerBI and Tableau.

- Created dashboards for finance and supply chain.

- Conducted A/B testing for marketing, improving conversion rates by 14%.

The problem? He was applying for a Software Engineer position, but the bullets focused on BI tasks and didn't showcase enough software engineering work. This is a common mistake I see when people apply for more technical roles.

What did we do? Delete and expand. We focused on expanding the ETL bullet to show more software engineering skills. Here’s how we revised it:

[Improved Example]

Consulting Firm - Software Developer (07/21 - 08/22), Hyderabad, India

- Designed and implemented ETL pipelines using Python and SQL to streamline data flow for a high-traffic application.

- Optimized data extraction and transformation processes, reducing system downtime by 20% and improving scalability.

- Automated ETL jobs using shell scripting, improving operational efficiency and reducing manual interventions by 40%.

- Integrated real-time data processing into the software architecture, ensuring consistent delivery of updated data for end-user applications.

By expanding on his engineering-related tasks, his experience now looks much more relevant to the Software Engineer role he was applying for. A few small adjustments like this can make a big difference in how your resume is perceived.