Writing your resume: Reflecting on experiences

We all assume that some level of chronology is the right thing to use in the resume. Agree that it is what the readers are expecting, so it makes sense to follow convention. I have seen a few infographic resumes, which use numbers that seem arbitrary. Examples: Launched 25 features and increased revenues by 10x. Is it good or bad is left to the readers interpretation. When looking back at my career and what exactly contributed to helping me get where I am today, it dawns on me that the specific short term deliverables, such as “shipped 10 features” or “helped on triaging customer issues” were just a means to my end.

To highlight this point, I am attempting to write about my experience at Cisco as a Software Engineer, from different points of view:

Functional:

At Cisco, I designed and developed software to enable telecom providers achieve high availability traffic routing with uptime target of 99.999%

Impact:

At Cisco, I worked on building routing software that powered infrastructure of leading telecom providers in USA. My code enabled supporting communication in legacy protocols like ATM, MPLS, SMTP in modern routing hardware to enable customers in decouple software upgrades from hardware refresh cycles, without impacting end customers.

Learning:

At Cisco, I designed and developed software that used by enterprise customers that have highest stability and operational requirements. I learned software development methodologies, ownership and operational excellence and handling technical conversations with customers in challenging situations.

This retrospection has shown that I have accumulated different skills in different roles and that they all add up over time. Such learnings have helped me become a technical business leader that understands customer needs better.

I will be making a more detailed list for myself, including aspects like how I learned to handle challenging situations or organizational issues. This will help me map which part of my leadership style is derived from what experience and only consciously treasure and continue some habits and let goof others. This exercise of connecting the dots looking back is going to help me appreciate the value of each experience that I am going through and acknowledge its value for the long term.

I guess this is what they mean in saying : There is no shortcut to experience.