Engineering resumes are read by two audiences with opposite needs: a recruiter scanning for stack matches in ten seconds, and an engineering manager reading for judgment and scale. Serve both — keywords visible at a glance, decisions and numbers underneath.

Structure that works

1. Header: name, role target, location/time zone, email, GitHub/portfolio link.
2. Two-line summary: "{{Level}} {{specialty}} engineer — {{years}} shipping {{domain}}. Recently: {{one concrete result}}."
3. Skills block: grouped by kind (languages / frameworks / infra / practices), honest, current. This is the recruiter's checklist — make it scannable, not exhaustive.
4. Experience: reverse-chronological, 3–5 bullets each, every bullet an outcome.
5. Projects/open source: only with a link and a one-line "what and why it's interesting".

Impact bullets — before and after

The formula: verb + system + measurable change + scale context. Engineering has the easiest numbers of any field — latency, throughput, error rates, incident counts, users, cost. Reconstruct honest approximations ("roughly halved") rather than writing none.

Keywords without stuffing

• Mirror the posting's stack terms exactly where true: "PostgreSQL" if they say PostgreSQL, not "SQL databases".
• Name technologies inside bullets, in context of use — that's what both parsers and humans trust.
• Seniority language matters: senior+ resumes should show chose, designed, led, defined — not only built and implemented.

Evidence beyond the resume

• Pin 2–3 repos with real READMEs (see the engineering portfolio checklist); link the one most relevant to your target role.
• Verified skill assessments and certifications belong in a one-line credentials row — they filter you IN on platforms that use them.
• A blog post or talk about a hard problem outperforms a list of ten toy projects.