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Resume Preparation Guide

Your resume is often the first impression you make. For Platform Engineering/SRE/DevOps roles, it needs to demonstrate both technical depth and operational impact.

Resume Structure​

  1. Contact Information (Name, Email, LinkedIn, GitHub)
  2. Professional Summary (2-3 lines)
  3. Technical Skills (Categorized)
  4. Professional Experience (Reverse chronological)
  5. Education
  6. Certifications (If relevant)
  7. Notable Projects (Optional)

Key Principles​

1. One Page Rule​

  • Keep it to one page unless you have 10+ years of experience
  • Be concise and impactful
  • Remove outdated or irrelevant information

2. Quantify Everything​

Instead of: "Improved system performance"
Write: "Reduced API response time by 40% through caching optimization, serving 2M+ daily requests"

3. Action-Oriented Language​

Start bullets with strong action verbs:

  • Architected, Automated, Built, Deployed
  • Designed, Developed, Enhanced, Implemented
  • Migrated, Optimized, Reduced, Scaled

4. Demonstrate Progression​

Show career growth through increasing responsibilities and impact

Technical Skills Section​

Effective Organization​

Technical Skills:
• Cloud Platforms: AWS (EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, EKS), GCP (GCE, GKE, Cloud Run)
• Containers/Orchestration: Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, Istio
• IaC/Configuration: Terraform, Ansible, CloudFormation, Packer
• CI/CD: Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, CircleCI
• Monitoring: Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, Datadog, New Relic
• Languages: Python, Go, Bash, JavaScript, Java
• Databases: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, DynamoDB

What to Include​

  • List technologies you're proficient in
  • Group by category for readability
  • Include version numbers for critical tools (e.g., Kubernetes 1.28+)
  • Add cloud certifications in skills or separate section

Experience Section Best Practices​

Structure Each Role​

Senior DevOps Engineer | TechCorp Inc. | San Francisco, CA | Jan 2023 - Present
• [Achievement with quantified impact]
• [Technical implementation with business value]
• [Process improvement with measurable results]
• [Leadership or collaboration example]

Platform Engineering Examples​

Infrastructure Automation:

  • "Architected multi-region Kubernetes platform serving 50+ microservices with 99.95% uptime SLA"
  • "Automated infrastructure provisioning reducing deployment time from 2 hours to 10 minutes"
  • "Built self-service platform reducing developer onboarding from 3 days to 2 hours"

Cost Optimization:

  • "Reduced AWS costs by 35% ($500K annually) through reserved instances and spot fleet optimization"
  • "Implemented automated resource scaling saving $200K/year while maintaining performance"

Reliability Improvements:

  • "Decreased MTTR by 60% implementing comprehensive monitoring and alerting system"
  • "Achieved 99.99% uptime for critical services through chaos engineering practices"
  • "Reduced production incidents by 75% through improved CI/CD pipelines and testing"

Security & Compliance:

  • "Implemented zero-trust security model across 100+ services"
  • "Achieved SOC2 compliance through automated security controls"
  • "Reduced security vulnerabilities by 90% with automated scanning in CI/CD"

Tailoring for Different Roles​

SRE Focus​

  • Emphasize reliability metrics (uptime, MTTR, error budgets)
  • Highlight incident management experience
  • Show capacity planning and performance optimization
  • Include on-call experience and runbook creation

Platform Engineer Focus​

  • Developer experience improvements
  • Self-service platform features
  • Tool development and automation
  • API and interface design

DevOps Engineer Focus​

  • CI/CD pipeline improvements
  • Deployment automation
  • Cross-team collaboration
  • Process improvements

Common Mistakes to Avoid​

1. Listing Responsibilities Instead of Achievements​

❌ "Responsible for managing Kubernetes clusters"
✅ "Managed 5 production Kubernetes clusters serving 10M daily requests with 99.9% availability"

2. Being Too Generic​

❌ "Worked with cloud technologies"
✅ "Migrated 50+ applications from on-premise to AWS EKS, reducing infrastructure costs by 40%"

3. Ignoring Business Impact​

❌ "Implemented monitoring system"
✅ "Implemented Prometheus-based monitoring, reducing incident detection time from 15 to 2 minutes, preventing $2M in potential downtime losses"

4. Overloading with Acronyms​

Balance technical terms with clear explanations of impact

ATS (Applicant Tracking System) Optimization​

Keywords to Include​

Match keywords from job descriptions:

  • Specific technologies (Kubernetes, Terraform, AWS)
  • Methodologies (Agile, DevOps, SRE)
  • Skills (automation, scripting, monitoring)
  • Certifications (CKA, AWS Solutions Architect)

Formatting for ATS​

  • Use standard section headers
  • Avoid graphics, tables, or unusual formatting
  • Save as PDF and .docx
  • Use standard fonts (Arial, Calibri, Times New Roman)

Professional Summary Examples​

Entry-Level (0-2 years)​

"Certified AWS Solutions Architect with 2 years of experience automating cloud infrastructure and improving deployment processes. Skilled in Kubernetes, Terraform, and Python scripting. Reduced deployment time by 50% through CI/CD implementation."

Mid-Level (3-5 years)​

"DevOps Engineer with 5 years of experience building scalable cloud platforms. Expert in Kubernetes orchestration, Infrastructure as Code, and monitoring solutions. Led migration of 100+ microservices to AWS EKS, improving reliability to 99.95% uptime."

Senior-Level (5+ years)​

"Senior SRE with 8+ years architecting reliable distributed systems at scale. Specialized in platform engineering, chaos engineering, and cost optimization. Built platforms processing 1B+ daily transactions while reducing operational costs by 40%."

Project Section (Optional)​

Include if you have notable open-source contributions or side projects:

Notable Projects:
• Kubernetes Operator for Database Backups - 500+ GitHub stars
  - Automated PostgreSQL backups in Kubernetes environments
  - Implemented in Go with full test coverage
• Terraform Module Collection - Used by 50+ companies
  - AWS infrastructure modules focusing on security best practices

Certifications Section​

List relevant and current certifications:

  • Kubernetes: CKA, CKAD, CKS
  • AWS: Solutions Architect, DevOps Engineer, SysOps Administrator
  • GCP: Cloud Engineer, Cloud Architect
  • Azure: Azure Administrator, Azure DevOps Engineer
  • Others: HashiCorp Terraform, Red Hat Certified Engineer

Final Resume Checklist​

  • One page (two maximum for senior roles)
  • No spelling or grammar errors
  • Consistent formatting and font
  • Quantified achievements in each role
  • Technical skills match job requirements
  • Contact information is current
  • LinkedIn and GitHub profiles are updated
  • Saved in PDF and .docx formats
  • Tailored for specific role/company
  • Reviewed by a peer

Additional Resources​

Remember: Your resume should tell a story of increasing impact and technical growth. Focus on what you achieved, not just what you did.