In short
A software engineering manager's resume gets read twice: once by a CTO who wants to know you can run teams, and once by a senior engineer who wants to know you still understand the system. It has to work for both. That means the stack and the scale, a technical result with the design choice behind it, and proof that your teams ship well and stay. Below is a senior Software Engineering Manager's resume, with why each section works, then the headline, letter opening and outreach for it.
Rhys is invented. His resume is assembled as FutureDay assembles one: every system and number is one he actually worked on, and the tools only appear where they add something. There's very little on it an engineer would call marketing, which is the point.
A software engineering manager's resume, line by line
RHYS CALLAGHAN
Software Engineering Manager | Go, AWS, Kubernetes | 4 teams, 99.97% uptime
Newcastle NSW · rhys.callaghan@email.com · 0400 000 000 · linkedin.com/in/rhyscallaghan · github.com/rhyscallaghan
Summary
Engineering manager who leads platform teams on systems that can't go down. Runs four teams and 26 engineers behind a telehealth and booking platform used by 1.4 million patients and 3,000 clinics, at 99.97% uptime over the last three years.
Close enough to the code to review an architecture and sit in on an incident, but measured on the teams: how often they deploy, how fast they recover, and how many engineers are still here a year later.
Career highlights
- Took the booking service from 1.6 seconds to 220 milliseconds at p95, and from 300 to 4,000 requests a second, by moving it onto an event queue and retiring the old synchronous path, with no downtime at cutover.
- Moved 40 services from a single data centre to AWS over 14 months, cutting infrastructure cost by 24% ($1.2M a year) while uptime went up.
- Grew the platform group from 9 to 26 engineers across four teams, with 12-month retention at 92% and three engineers promoted to tech lead.
Experience
Software Engineering Manager, Platform, Lantana Health Systems 2021 to now
Four teams, 26 engineers. Platform behind 1.4 million patients and 3,000 clinics. Owns uptime, security and $3.8M a year in cloud spend. Reports to the Chief Technology Officer.
- Took deploys from weekly to around 30 a day by building one delivery pipeline with automated tests and canary releases.
- Cut mean time to restore from four hours to 25 minutes by introducing on-call rotations, runbooks and blameless incident reviews.
- Led the engineering work for ISO 27001 certification, passed at the first audit with no major non-conformities.
- Started a graduate program that has hired eight engineers in three years; six are still on the team.
Senior Software Engineer, then Tech Lead, Pelican Ledger 2016 to 2021
Accounting software for small businesses, 200,000 subscribers.
- Rebuilt the bank feed service in Go, processing 2 million transactions a day with the error rate down from 0.8% to 0.05%.
- Led a team of six as tech lead, delivering the payroll module on schedule; 40,000 customers used it in its first year.
- Cut database spend by $280K a year by moving reporting queries to a read replica and a data warehouse.
Earlier career
Software engineering roles in mining technology and telecommunications, including Software Engineer at Merriton Mining Systems and Graduate Developer at Kellbrook Networks.
Education and certification
Bachelor of Engineering (Software)
AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Professional
Technical skills
Go, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, Kafka · AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform · CI/CD and canary releases · Incident management · ISO 27001 · Hiring and growing engineers
- HeadlineStack, then one figure a peer respects. Engineers scan for the stack first. A third slot only earns its place with a number another engineer would find notable. Four teams and 99.97% uptime on a health platform qualifies.
- SummaryThe system, the scale, the teams. The first paragraph sizes the job. The second answers the question every engineering manager interview asks: are you still technical, and what do you measure yourself on?
- HighlightsBefore, after, and the design choice. 1.6 seconds to 220 milliseconds is what changed. The event queue is how. "No downtime at cutover" says it was done safely, which is what a CTO actually worries about.
- Scope lineSpend is scope too. Teams, engineers and users size the job. "$3.8M a year in cloud spend" tells a reader he owns cost, not just code.
- BulletsOutcome first, tools behind it. Each line opens with what changed: deploy frequency, recovery time, certification, people. The tools are named only where an engineer would want to know.
- Earlier careerEarly roles, no years. Where he started is there, without dates. The title line above it, "Senior Software Engineer, then Tech Lead", shows a promotion without needing a second entry.
- SkillsOnly what you'd be happy to be tested on. A screening system and a senior engineer both read this line. Everything on it is something he has run in production.
What does a CTO look for in a software engineering manager?
Usually a CTO or head of engineering, asking three things. Have you run systems like ours, at our scale? Do your teams ship often and recover fast? Do good engineers stay with you? A resume that shows a latency number, a restore time and a retention figure answers all three in the first half page.
Before: "Managed a team of engineers and was responsible for platform reliability."
After: "Cut mean time to restore from four hours to 25 minutes by introducing on-call rotations, runbooks and blameless incident reviews."
What should a software engineering manager's LinkedIn headline say?
Role and stack, because that's what technical recruiters search. Add the domain if it sets you apart. Rhys's says:
"Software Engineering Manager | Go, AWS, Kubernetes | Healthcare platforms"
Not "Tech leader | Innovator | Building the future of health". An engineer reading it learns nothing, and engineers are often the ones asked for a second opinion.
How should an engineering manager's cover letter open?
With something you built that looks like their problem. Short and concrete:
"You're moving a booking platform off your own servers while clinics use it every day. I moved forty services to AWS over fourteen months behind a health platform with 1.4 million patients, and uptime went up while cost came down by 24%."
Then close on the kind of problem you want to work on next, and why.
Who should a software engineering manager reach out to?
Engineering manager roles often go to someone the CTO already knows, or someone an engineer on the team vouches for. The resume gets reviewed after someone has said your name. Getting it said is the work.
For a Software Engineering Manager, begin with:
- Engineers who've worked for you and moved on. When their new company needs a manager, they're asked who they'd want to work for. A former report saying your name is about the strongest word there is in this field.
- Your cloud provider's account team and the consultancies you've used. They work inside dozens of engineering teams and see which CTO is stretched thin.
- The CTO or Head of Engineering at product companies at the stage you like working in. That's who hires an engineering manager.
A good first note takes a minute to read and asks for little. To an engineer who used to be on his team:
"Hi Mei, good to see you're leading the mobile team now, well deserved. I'm starting to look at what's next, probably a senior engineering manager or head of engineering role, in Newcastle or remote. If your company is growing its engineering leadership, or you hear of somewhere that is, I'd love to know. Really proud of what you've built since we worked together."
A message like that, a few times a day, is most of the method. The Off-Market Method sets out the whole approach.
What FutureDay does for a software engineering manager
FutureDay builds your resume from your real work history, as with Rhys, and tailors it to each job description without adding a tool or result you didn't have. Each day it shows you who to contact, what to say, and what to do next.
In summary
Stack in the headline; a third slot only for a number engineers respect.
Every highlight is a before, an after, and the design choice behind it.
Show your teams: how often they ship, how fast they recover, who stays.
Recent roles get detail; early ones get one line, no dates.
Your resume gets read after someone vouches for you. Spend your time on the people who might.