Your Resume Sucks and Here's How to Fix It

Most of us just list what we did at previous jobs. That worked fine when any JavaScript experience got you hired. Not anymore.

Why Your Current Resume Sucks

I see resumes that list 20 technologies but can't explain why Redux was chosen over Context API. You're not impressing anyone by mentioning every framework you've touched. Companies want proof you can make technical decisions that don't blow up in production.

Had this memory issue that drove me crazy for weeks. Node app kept crashing with "JavaScript heap out of memory" and the logs were useless. Tried everything - profiling tools, thought it was Redis, spent way too long looking at the database connections. Finally found some huge Redis keys while debugging something else entirely. Turns out someone was storing user photos as base64 strings. Fixed it and saved the company a bunch on AWS, maybe 2-3k a month. Got promoted partly because I actually documented the cost savings.

Show What You Actually Built

Instead of "Worked with React," write "Built user dashboard that handles like 5000+ concurrent logins, fixed load times by implementing code splitting and optimizing database queries that were timing out." Give actual numbers - "reduced load time from 8.2 seconds to around 2 seconds" is much better than vague improvements.

Be specific about the problems you solved:

• "Fixed production issue where Docker containers kept dying every few hours due to memory leak in background job processing"
• "Optimized database queries that were timing out during peak traffic, got response times down from 4+ seconds to maybe 200-300ms"
• "Implemented caching that handled Black Friday traffic surge without the site going down (mostly)"

Real Technical Leadership

Don't just say you "led a team." Show the technical decisions you made:

• "Migrated from microservices back to monolith, reducing deployment complexity and fixing data consistency issues that were causing multiple production incidents per week"
• "Introduced TypeScript to a huge JavaScript codebase, caught hundreds of runtime errors during migration"
• "Set up monitoring that caught issues before they affected users, probably saved us tens of thousands in lost revenue"

Version-Specific Experience Matters

Companies care about recent experience with current versions. Don't just say "React experience" - specify React 18 with concurrent features or PostgreSQL 15 with native JSON optimization.

React 18 migration bit me too. StrictMode started double-calling useEffect and all our API calls fired twice in dev. Spent days thinking the backend was broken, then blamed Redux, then axios. Found a GitHub issue eventually that explained it was intentional. Most senior interviews ask about React 18 now because everyone's had similar issues.

Companies aren't hiring AI researchers. They need developers who can make AI tools actually work in real applications.

What Actually Pays Well Right Now

Making AI Tools Not Suck

Everyone's cramming ChatGPT into their apps and most of them are broken. We had an AI chat feature that kept giving wrong prices to customers - like 50 bucks instead of 500. That was fun to explain. Took forever to debug because first we thought it was prompt engineering, then tried different models, temperature settings, whatever. Eventually just added validation and fallbacks when it got too confident about obviously wrong answers.

Show experience with:

• Implementing proper RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) with vector databases
• Handling AI API failures gracefully (OpenAI goes down more than you'd think)
• Cost management (our AI bills got stupid expensive because someone wasn't optimizing API calls)

Cloud Cost Optimization

Our AWS bill got out of control - like 20-something grand one month because we were running huge RDS instances and Docker images that were way too big. Got it down to maybe 8k by actually looking at what we were paying for. Had some instances that were barely doing anything. That kind of cost reduction gets noticed.

Real examples that work on resumes:

• "Reduced Docker image size from 1.2GB to 387MB by removing unused dependencies and using multi-stage builds"
• "Migrated from RDS to Aurora Serverless, reducing database costs by 38% while improving query performance"
• "Set up CloudWatch alerts that caught 12 potential outages before they affected users"

Performance Engineering

Nobody gives a shit about your React hooks mastery if your app takes 15 seconds to load. Had this Next.js nightmare that was importing the entire fucking Lodash library on every page because someone was too lazy to do tree shaking. Fixed it by actually looking at the webpack bundle analyzer and deleting like half our dependencies.

Industry-Specific Pain Points

Fintech:

Everything breaks during market hours. Built a trading platform that needed to handle 3,200+ orders per second without losing money. Kept getting "connection pool exhausted" errors right at 9:30am market open. Had to completely rework our connection pooling strategy and add Redis caching for account balances.

Healthcare:

HIPAA compliance isn't optional. Learned this after spending 3 weeks implementing audit logging that met zero compliance requirements. Had to start over with proper PHI data handling and encryption at rest.

E-commerce:

Black Friday will break your checkout. Went from handling 127 concurrent users to 1,100+ by implementing database connection pooling and caching the product catalog. Still crashed twice that night.

Remote Work Reality

Companies are tired of remote developers who disappear during core hours. Show you can work independently:

• "Debugged production issue during European night hours, minimizing US business impact"
• "Documented architectural decisions enabling team to continue development during my vacation"
• "Set up monitoring and alerting that caught most issues before users reported them"

Version-Specific Expertise

Stop saying "JavaScript experience." Be specific:

• "Node.js 20 with native test runner (no more Jest config hell)"
• "React 18 concurrent features for performance optimization"

The Bottom Line

Pick 2-3 technologies you're actually good at. I'd rather hire someone who's an expert in PostgreSQL than someone who's "familiar with" 15 databases.

Figure out how much money you saved or made the company. That's what justifies your salary, not your React skills.

Document Your Business Impact

I got a pretty good raise by keeping track of every time I prevented shit from breaking. Companies don't give a fuck about your clean code until something crashes and they lose money.

Real examples that worked for salary negotiations:

• "Optimized database queries that were timing out during peak traffic, preventing estimated hundreds of thousands in lost sales"
• "Fixed memory leak that was crashing our servers every Saturday night - prevented an estimated $18k per outage based on lost transactions"
• "Implemented monitoring that caught AWS outages before they affected users, preventing customer churn"

Track everything with business impact. Not "improved performance" but "reduced page load time from 7.8 seconds to 2.1 seconds, decreasing cart abandonment rate by 23%."

Know Your Market Value

Research actual salaries using:

• Stack Overflow Developer Survey (real data from 90K+ developers)
• levels.fyi (specific company salary data)

Don't trust salary calculator websites that inflate numbers to get clicks.

Timing Your Ask

Good times to negotiate:

• After completing a major project successfully
• During performance review cycles
• When you've prevented a disaster
• After gaining new skills that add value

Bad times:

• Right after production breaks
• During company layoffs
• When you haven't delivered anything significant recently

The Negotiation Conversation

Script that actually works:

"Based on my research, the market rate for my skills and experience level is $X. Over the past year, I've [specific achievements with business impact]. I'd like to discuss adjusting my compensation to reflect this value."

Don't say: "I need more money" or "I haven't had a raise in 2 years."

Multiple Offers Strategy

Having other options gives you leverage, but don't fake it. Companies can tell.

When I had multiple offers, I told my preferred company: "I've got other options but I'd rather work here if you can do better." Got them close to what I wanted.

Be honest about timelines. Don't say "I need an answer by Friday" if you don't.

Equity and Total Compensation

Cash is king for most developers. Equity is lottery tickets.

Startup offering 0.1% equity? That's monopoly money until they actually exit (spoiler: they probably won't). Established company that actually makes money? Maybe worth something.

Benefits that actually matter:

• Health insurance quality
• 401k matching
• Flexible PTO (if actually usable)
• Learning budget
• Home office stipend

Remote Work Premium

Some companies pay more for remote talent because they're competing globally. Others pay less because "you save on commuting."

Research the company's remote culture before negotiating. If they're remote-first, you have more leverage.

When Companies Say No

Get specifics: "What would need to change for this to be possible?"

Often it's:

• Take on more responsibility (tech lead role)
• Improve specific skills (architecture, mentoring)
• Wait for next review cycle

If they won't budge on salary, negotiate other things:

• Promotion timeline
• Learning budget
• Conference attendance
• Flexible schedule

Know When to Walk

Sometimes companies genuinely can't pay more. Sometimes they won't.

Left a company that claimed they "couldn't afford" market rate. Few months later I heard they hired multiple replacements and lost a bunch of people to competitors.

Your skills are worth what the market pays, not what your current company thinks.