Ah, the cover letter for software engineer jobs.
Unfortunately, these documents remain a crucial part of any development team job application — especially if you’re applying for remote jobs.
Along with your software developer resume, a cover letter provides space for you to tell the recruiter a little more about yourself: not just about your technical skills and engineering team experience, but also about how you will contribute to the company. If used right, your cover letter should be able to show some of your true self and your personality — something a resume really can’t do.
For developers, writing a cover letter can be a challenge, especially as the work you do can be quite technical. How do you describe your duties and responsibilities to a non-technical hiring manager or recruiter in a compelling, understandable way? And, at the same time, how to still showcase your technical skills for any engineering leads or CTOs who might pick up your cover letter next?
Don’t you worry! We’ll break down what to include in a cover letter for a software developer, as well as some tips and advice for how to stand out among the sea of developer candidates you’re competing against.
But, before we get to the step-by-step guide, have a look just below for our example cover letter for software developers — a little extra inspiration to get you started!
Sample Software Engineer Cover Letter (for Reference)
Here is a cover letter example for software development jobs. Feel free to copy and use as you wish, but make sure you tailor the content for each company to which you apply!
Bianca B. Seward Experienced Cloud & Back-End Software Engineer bianca.bridgerton.seward.123@gmail.com +1 (555) 987-6543 github.com/biancabseward/ linkedin.com/in/biancabridgertonseward/ biancabseward.com July 2, 2022 Jeremy Lignetti Sr. Technical Recruiter DigitalOcean 101 Avenue of the Americas, 10th Floor New York, NY 10013 Dear Jeremy: Having recently come across your job posting for a senior cloud software engineer at DigitalOcean and subsequently reading the job description, I knew I had to apply immediately. As a New York City local who has earned her master’s degree (computer science) and worked for top companies around Silicon Alley, this role seems like the ideal next step in my career. Currently a cloud and back-end engineer at Apple’s Cloud Services division, I manage a variety of tasks similar to what your job description mentions for this role. These include establishing secure cloud environments, ensuring uptime, building, designing, and deploying complex SaaS-based applications, and production monitoring. With over 7 years of experience around engineering and cloud services, particularly with CI/CD, Docker Swarm, Golang, Java, and Python, I think I’d be a great fit for taking on the challenges of this particular senior position. At Apple, I was instrumental in overhauling the bug tracking and ticketing system on our cloud engineering team. Through these efforts, we were able to catch issues 30% earlier, on average. Prior to that, I led a cross-functional team to extend REST and API utilization internally, and this increased our productivity by about 15%. I’d really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you and share more about how I can contribute to DigitalOcean's cloud efforts. Thank you in advance for considering my application, and I look forward to your reply! Sincerely, Bianca B. Seward
How to Write a Software Engineer Cover Letter
Software development, and IT jobs generally, are pretty technical in nature. You’d probably rather write code than write a resume cover letter!
But, luckily, the best cover letters are relatively short and sweet. Stick to three to four paragraphs and focus on explaining how your past experience is going to help the new company succeed.
These days, most cover letters are sent in the email body as text, rather than as a separate attachment. Include the job that you’re applying for as the subject line of the letter and email to make it clear to the recruiter what your intent is. And, don’t forget to attach your resume to the email, too.
Here’s a quick guide on how to write a cover letter for a job in software engineering:
1. Before you begin writing…
Don’t just start writing, even with the help of our software engineer cover letter sample above.
First, you need to get the original job description out and open in front of you. Keep it there as a reference to help you write your cover letter in a way that is tailored to this specific job.
Next, research the company a bit, what they do in general, projects they’ve done in the past, and where they hope to be heading in the future. This will help you further customize your cover letter for this particular software engineer job position.
Finally, remember what the cover letter is for. It’s not meant to repeat the information that already exists in your resume — that’ll just waste both your time and theirs. Instead, use your software engineering cover letter to highlight particular accomplishments in more detail and/or to speak about any items you might have left off.
Read More: 8 Best Resume Makers for Software Engineers in 2022
2. The cover letter header
Include your contact information first, at the very top of the page. For your personal information details, you can follow the standard business letter formatting (like in our cover letter example above), or you can use the same template as your resume to deliver a cohesive package.
Start by listing your name, branding statement or title, address, and one or two other important details, like your GitHub, StackOverflow, or LinkedIn profile. You don’t need to include everything, as your resume has more of this same information.
After your contact information, leave a line break and add today’s date. Follow that with another line break and then include the addressee’s details. These are, line by line: the person’s name, their title, the company name, and the company’s address.
3. Salutations & the introductory paragraph
After the heading of the cover letter, open the written portion with a salutation. Use “Dear Jeremy:” if you can find a name, and do try to find their name! This is much more compelling than other generic options (e.g., “To whom it may concern:”).
Now, use the introduction paragraph in your software engineering cover letter draft to accomplish a few things:
- Draw the reader in and make them want to continue reading and learning more about you.
- Introduce yourself as a candidate, and explain why you are writing to them.
- Answer to yourself: What about this particular job compelled me to apply?
Read More: How to Build a Software Engineer Portfolio Website to Showcase Your Projects
4. The body of software engineering cover Letters
The body portion of your cover letter for software engineering positions should give them some career highlights.
- What makes you an outstanding candidate for this position?
- What qualifications do you have that meet or exceed their expectations?
- What are some related accomplishments you can share to prove you have what it takes?
- Use numbers (e.g., percentages, dollar amounts) to make those achievements stand out!
Share an engineering project you’ve worked on and how you went about it. Help the reader understand why you’d make a great engineer at their company by connecting your previous experience and achievements back with their software engineering job description.
5. Ending the cover letter
End your cover letter by thanking the recruiter for their consideration. Ask them to reach out to you with questions and next steps.
To wrap it up, leave a “Sincerely,” and your full name. That’s all there is to it!
Read More: 5 Great Ways to Get Your Profile Noticed as a Software Engineer
Top Software Engineer Cover Letter Tips to Remember
As you can see from the software developer cover letter example and guide above, it’s all pretty straightforward.
There are, however, a few best practices that can make your cover letter really pop.
1. Don’t repeat your software engineering resume
We said this before, and we’ll say it again — don’t repeat your resume!
Virtually every job seeker experiences some confusion over what should go in a cover letter vs resume. A resume skills section outlines most of the reasons why you’re qualified to do the job: what more is there to say, right?
Ideally, a resume should be one to two pages. The goal of a resume is to get you to the next stage of the hiring process: not tell your entire life story. However, your software engineering cover letter offers extra space to talk about particular experience or accomplishments outside of the resume layout related to this job.
2. Use keywords to give them what they’re looking for
Sprinkle in a few keywords found in the job description throughout your cover letter. When the job description specifically mentions Python and has no mention of Java, you might want to do the same! Also, address the hiring manager directly, if possible, and use the company’s name in your cover letter, as well.
Read More: Developer Job Boards: 15+ Best Job Sites for Software Engineers
3. Prove you actually did what you say you did
Quantify your results as much as possible. Instead of writing “On my last project, I led a small team of developers to overhaul the website’s database,” write something like “On my last project, I led a team of 5 developers to overhaul the website’s database, which led to a 25% increase in site speed and a 10% reduction in bounced visits.”
As you can see, numbers sound impressive! They prove you did a particularly good job, rather than just saying that the job was one of your responsibilities. It’s similar to software developer skill assessments; hiring managers always hear candidates say they have a certain skill or experience, but skills assessment tests — and numbered achievements on a cover letter — verify that fact to them.
4. Do your research
Show them you did your homework on the company, meaning you know what they do, their obstacles and opportunities, and who they are. Then, tie this information in with who you are. Explain how their goals and yours align, how you’re the best possible candidate to solve their current problems, and why you’d simply be the greatest software engineer they’ve ever set eyes on.
5. Don’t neglect your soft skills
Lastly, don’t forget to highlight your soft skills, too. These often get lost in a standard resume layout; but, soft skills are crucial, especially for senior software developers who will be taking on more management responsibilities. These include time management, great communication, quick thinking, problem solving skills, and adaptability, among others.
Read More: Common Interview Questions for Software Engineering Jobs
That’s all for our post today, and we hope you now understand how to write a cover letter for software engineer jobs efficiently and effectively!
If you have any questions about writing software developer cover letters or have further tips or stories to share about software engineering cover letters, we’d love to hear them. Leave us a comment below, and we’ll get back to you shortly. Thanks for reading, and we wish you the best of luck!
