Software Engineering · Entry level · Updated July 2026

Entry-Level Software Engineer Resume Example

With little or no full-time experience, your resume has one job: prove you can already build software. Projects, internships, and coursework all do that, as long as each one shows what you built and what it did, not just that it existed. The example below leads with real, deployed work.

How to write a software engineer resume with no experience

"No experience" almost always means "no full-time job," not "nothing to show." Your resume's one job is to prove you can already build software, and projects, internships, and coursework all count when each one shows a result.

Start by putting projects and any internships at the top, above education. For a new grad, the most convincing thing on the page is real, deployed work with links, so it shouldn't sit below a list of classes. If you've interned, lead each bullet with the impact you had on a real team: a feature shipped, tests added, a bug fixed in production. The example's first internship bullet does this: a notifications feature, 8,000 users, ticket to production in six weeks. That's the closest thing to professional experience you have, so quantify it.

Use education well, then move on. List your degree, graduation date, and relevant coursework or honors, but don't let it fill the page. GPA is optional; include it only if it's strong (≈3.5+). One tight education block is plenty.

Keep the whole thing to one page. Mirror the languages and tools from the job posting, stay single-column so the ATS can read it, and resist padding. A focused one-pager reads as more confident than a stretched one. Two neighboring situations have their own pages: if you're still mid-degree and hunting internships, see the college student resume example, and if you've never held any job and aren't targeting software specifically, start with the resume with no experience example.

Projects that do the work of a job

When your work history is short, projects carry the resume, so treat each one like a job entry. Name what you built, the stack, and the result (users, a feature, a measurable improvement). Look at how this example lists TripSplit: the stack, 600+ users, and the hardest part (the debt-settlement algorithm) in two bullets. That beats "completed coursework in web development" every time.

Pick projects that prove range and finish. One polished, deployed app with real users does more than five half-finished tutorials. Include a live link and the source so a reviewer can click through, and write the bullets around the hard parts you solved, not the framework's defaults. The skills section backs this up; list the tools you've actually built with:

Languages: Python, Java, JavaScript/TypeScript
Web: a framework (React/Next), HTML/CSS, REST APIs
Fundamentals: data structures, Git, SQL, testing
Bonus: anything from an internship or project (cloud, Docker, a database)

What new-grad reviewers reward vs. skim

New-grad piles are huge, so reviewers skim fast and reward the resumes that read as "already building" over "still learning."

Lead with deployed projects and live links
Quantify your internship and project impact
Mirror the exact tech from the job post
Keep it to a confident single page

Don't

Open with a long coursework list
Describe projects by the assignment, not the result
Claim ten languages you've each used once
Stretch thin experience across two pages

No deployed projects yet? That's the highest-leverage thing you can build before applying. Even one polished, live app changes the resume more than another bullet ever will.

Frequently asked questions

How do I write a resume with no work experience?

Lead with projects and education instead. A couple of real, deployed projects with links, plus relevant coursework, prove ability convincingly. Hackathons, open source, and freelance work all count as experience.

Should I include my GPA?

Only if it helps, roughly 3.5+. Otherwise leave it off; a strong project section carries far more weight than a GPA line.

How long should an entry-level resume be?

One page, always. You don't yet have the experience to justify two, and a tight, focused page is exactly what new-grad reviewers expect.

Ready to make it yours?

Open this example in the builder, swap in your own work, and download a polished, ATS-ready PDF.

Read the full example as text— every line from the preview, in plain text

Sam Carter — entry-level software engineer resume example

Austin, TX

Summary

Computer science new grad with internship and project experience building full-stack web apps. Eager to write production code, learn fast, and ship features on a real team.

Work Experience

Software Engineering Intern · Brightpath (Internship)

Summer 2025 – Aug 2025 · Austin, TX

Built an in-app notifications feature end to end in React and Node, used by 8,000 users, taking it from ticket to production in a six-week internship.
Added the feature's integration tests, which caught three regressions before launch and became the template other interns copied.
Paired with senior engineers in code review and daily standups, picking up the team's patterns for API design and error handling.

Software Engineering Intern · Nimbus Labs (Internship)

Summer 2024 – Aug 2024 · Austin, TX

Implemented REST endpoints in Python and Flask for an internal tool the ops team uses to track fulfillment SLAs.
Worked through a backlog of bugs and wrote unit tests, shipping 20+ merged pull requests over the summer.

Undergraduate Teaching Assistant · UT Austin, Dept. of Computer Science

2023 – 2024 · Austin, TX

Led weekly lab sections for 30+ students in data structures and algorithms, explaining recursion, graphs, and Big-O until they clicked.
Held office hours and graded projects, writing feedback the professor reused while sharpening my own fundamentals in the process.

Projects

TripSplit — expense-sharing app · React, Node, PostgreSQL

Full-stack app for splitting group trip costs across currencies; 600+ users, deployed on Vercel + Railway with a Postgres backend.
Designed the database schema and REST API, and wrote the debt-settlement algorithm that minimizes the number of payouts in a group.

CommitViz — GitHub activity dashboard · TypeScript, Next.js

Visualizes a developer's contribution patterns from the GitHub API with D3; featured in a campus showcase and starred by 120+ users.