Ask HN: How do mid-level people write achievements in their resume?

Hi HN,

I am trying to rewrite my resume and it's becoming harder and harder with time. When I was younger, it was easy to just write achievements as bullet points (obtained 10x performance improvements of [complex algorithm] used in [arcane subprocess nobody knows exists], rewrote [feature] to use [N%] less memory, etc).

But today I would have dozens such bullet points. I wrote a bunch of code in dozens of applications, a large library, took part in many releases, etc. Yet I'm not a leader so I can't really go the "soft skills" route, I think I still need measurable achievements.

Could I have examples of what you guys think bullet points look like for people with 5-10 years of experience that used a number of different technologies, took part in a number of releases, etc? Or is it just I have been doing the wrong thing and it looks bad if you're still a programmer working on low-ish level stuff when you have that experience?

1 comment

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patio11 7y ago ↗

Senior ICs get heavy leverage out of so-called soft skills and should feel free to include material successes with respect to them on their resumes and sales pitches. e.g. Who / how many folks did you mentor, what technical directions were taken as a function of your suasion and what were the business results achieved thereby, what things does your company do now automatically because you process-itized them where previously they were done by heroic efforts of ICs or forgotten, who/how many joined the company out of opportunity to work with you, etc.

Micro-tip: "senior IC" [0] is a better branding than "mid-level."

[0] IC = individual contributor, which is large-company speak for "folks who don't manage anyone." A majority of one's contribution to the company comes from doing The Work but an increasing portion comes from influence/strategic direction/mentoring/etc as moves up ladder and starts impacting operations outside of things one directly writes code for.

P.S. Above also works for performance reviews.