Skills

Recommendations

✅ Categorize skills

If you have lots of skills to list, categorize them to improve readability. Examples of common categories include: Front end, Web frameworks, Databases, Cloud Platforms, Machine learning/Data, etc.

What categories you use will be determined by your profile. If you're a specialist (deep front/back end expertise), you can further break down within the categories.

✅ Pay attention to formatting and letter casing

JavaScript, not Javascript or JS. MySQL not Mysql. You get the idea.

✅ Only list skills you are confident of

Keep your skills section high signal, prioritize the skills that are relevant and you are confident to demonstrate and defend during the interviews. Leave out things you have only used once or twice, otherwise it might look like you're "keyword stuffing".

Common mistakes

❌ Don't give ratings for skills

It is pointless to give a rating (e.g. 4/5 stars in JavaScript) to your skills. List only the skills you are comfortable with using in a professional setting. If you have skills which are 3/5 or even lower (which suggests an average or lower mastery), you shouldn't even be mentioning them in your resume.

❌ Don't list the expected skills and common tools

All software engineers are expected to know version control and how to use IDEs. Listing Git and VS Code under this section is just a waste of space and can lead the reader to think that you have nothing better to write.

❌ Don't list too many skills in the same domain

Listing all of React, Angular, and Vue (front end frameworks) is overkill even if you are familiar with all of them. It is unlikely a company uses so many different technologies for the same purpose (and a red flag if they do). Listing all of them will make you seem like an expert beginner, just list the ones that the job description asks for.

❌ Don't list soft skills and project management skills

Avoid listing these skills:

• Project management: Agile, Scrum, Sprint planning, Backlog pruning, Stakeholder engagement
• Soft skills: Conflict resolution, Mentorship, Empathy, Leadership, Consensus building, Communication

The above is non-exhaustive but you should get the idea. These skills are important, but they are subjective and every engineer is expected to possess them to a certain degree depending on seniority. These skills can be demonstrated through the content under "Work Experience" and evaluated during behavioral interviews, there's little value in explicitly mentioning them.

Examples

Front End Engineer

• Programming Languages: JavaScript (Expert), TypeScript (Expert), HTML (Expert), CSS (Expert)
• Technologies: React (Expert), Next.js, Redux, MobX, Tailwind CSS, webpack, Babel, ESLint
• Web3: Ethers.js, Metamask API

Back End Engineer

• Programming Languages: Python, Java, Go
• Databases: DynamoDB, Redis, MongoDB, MySQL, Athena, Oracle
• Cloud Platforms: Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform
• Data Platforms: Simple Queue Service, Kinesis, Glue