Startup Resume Guide
Startups hire differently. Learn how to showcase versatility, ownership, and speed of execution to land roles at fast-growing companies.
Markus Fink
Senior Technical Recruiter, Ex - Google, Airbnb
What You'll Learn
What Startups Want
Startup hiring differs from big tech:
- Generalists over specialists — Can you do frontend AND backend?
- Ownership over process — Did you take things from 0 to 1?
- Speed over perfection — Can you ship fast and iterate?
- Ambiguity tolerance — Can you thrive without detailed specs?
Your resume should prove you can operate effectively with less structure and more responsibility.
Showing Versatility
Startups need engineers who can wear many hats:
Show breadth across:
- Frontend + Backend (full-stack preferred)
- Infrastructure + Application code
- Building + Debugging + Ops
- Coding + Customer conversations
Demonstrating Ownership
Ownership is the #1 trait startups seek. Show it by:
- Zero-to-one projects — "Built X from scratch" not "contributed to X"
- End-to-end delivery — Design → Build → Deploy → Monitor
- Decision making — "Chose tech stack" shows ownership of decisions
- Fixing things unrequested — "Identified and resolved" shows initiative
Use phrases like: "Owned", "Built from scratch", "Single-handedly shipped", "Drove adoption of"
Speed of Execution
Startups value velocity. Quantify your speed:
- Ship frequency — "Deployed 50+ features in 6 months"
- Time to production — "Built and launched MVP in 3 weeks"
- Rapid iteration — "Tested 5 pricing models in 2 months, finding 40% revenue lift"
- Quick ramps — "Onboarded and shipped production code in first week"
Big company resumes often lack these speed indicators. Make them prominent.
Tailoring by Startup Stage
Seed / Series A (1-20 employees)
Emphasize: Full-stack, scrappiness, 0-to-1 building, wearing many hats
Series B (20-100 employees)
Emphasize: Scaling systems, establishing processes, mentoring
Series C+ (100+ employees)
Emphasize: Technical leadership, cross-team impact, domain expertise