Backend Engineer Resume Sample (1-3 YoE, India 2026)

A real ATS-friendly resume sample for Backend Engineer (1-3 years experience) (1-3 years, Software / SaaS).

Sample resume

Rohan Mehta — Bengaluru, India

Backend engineer with 2.5 years building production APIs at a Series-B fintech (Razorpay alumnus). Strong on Python/FastAPI, PostgreSQL, distributed systems, and observability. Owned 2 critical services end-to-end (payment retry, merchant settlement). Looking for SDE-2 / Senior Backend roles at product companies where I can scale ownership beyond a single service.

Experience

Software Engineer (Backend) — Setu (Bangalore, hybrid) (Aug 2023 – Present)

  • Owned the merchant-settlement service end-to-end (Python/FastAPI, PostgreSQL, Kafka): 4M+ daily transactions, 99.97% uptime over 18 months.
  • Cut p99 settlement latency from 480ms → 120ms by introducing per-merchant connection pooling + a denormalized read replica for the daily-balance query.
  • Designed + shipped the idempotency layer for the partner-payouts API; eliminated all duplicate-payment bugs (4 incidents in prior quarter, 0 since).
  • Mentored 2 junior engineers; pair-coded design docs on rate-limiting + retry semantics that became the team standard.

Software Engineering Intern — Razorpay (Bangalore) (Jan 2023 – Jun 2023)

  • Built the webhook delivery retry service (Python): 200K+ daily events, cut failed-delivery rate from 3.1% to 0.4% via exponential backoff + idempotency keys.
  • Migrated a legacy Celery cron to Temporal workflows; reduced average run time 35% and eliminated 4 production incidents in the prior quarter.

Education

B.Tech, Computer Science Engineering, NIT Surathkal (2019 – 2023) — CGPA: 8.4 / 10.0

Skills

  • Languages: Python, Go, SQL, JavaScript, TypeScript
  • Backend: FastAPI, Django, Node.js (Express), gRPC
  • Data: PostgreSQL, Redis, Kafka, BigQuery, Elasticsearch
  • Infra / DevOps: Docker, Kubernetes (basics), AWS (EC2, RDS, S3, SQS), Datadog, Sentry, GitHub Actions

Projects

rate-limiter-redis (Open source)

  • Distributed rate-limiter library for Python services backed by Redis; 580+ stars, 24 contributors, used in 3 production codebases (per GitHub network).
  • Implemented token bucket + sliding window algorithms with Lua scripts for atomic Redis operations; benchmark suite hits 50K req/s on a single Redis node.

Why this resume works for ATS

  • Bullets are *outcomes*, not tasks. "Cut p99 from 480ms → 120ms" tells the recruiter exactly the impact and complexity. "Worked on settlement service" doesn't.
  • Senior signals appear without being explicit — "owned end-to-end," "designed the idempotency layer," "mentored 2 juniors," "became the team standard." These differentiate from a 2-year ASE who just executed tickets.
  • Open-source project (rate-limiter-redis) carries enormous weight at this experience band — it shows you can ship beyond your day job and that other engineers trust your code (stars + contributors).
  • Stack section is grouped by *layer* (Languages / Backend / Data / Infra) instead of one wall — recruiters scanning for "Kafka" or "Postgres" find them instantly.
  • Razorpay alumnus framing in the summary is a credibility shortcut — name-drops a respected eng-culture company. If you have one, use it.

Common mistakes for Backend Engineer (1-3 years experience) resumes

  • Listing every project from college. At 2.5 YoE, college projects belong on the cutting room floor — your work experience and OSS carry the resume.
  • Vague language like "improved performance" or "scaled the system." Specific numbers always — without them, the bullet sounds like padding.
  • Showing 12 frameworks per category. Senior engineers go *deep* on a smaller set; junior engineers list everything. Be the one who looks senior.
  • Forgetting to mention scale. "Built a payment service" is invisible. "Built a payment service handling 4M daily transactions" is hireable. Always include scale numbers when you have them.
  • No mention of mentorship, design docs, or cross-team work. At 2-3 YoE, recruiters look for early signs of seniority. Mention them explicitly if true.

Frequently asked

How long should a 2-3 YoE backend engineer's resume be?

One page if your work history is concentrated (1-2 companies). Two pages only if you have 3+ companies, a strong open-source portfolio, or significant technical writing/talks. Recruiters spend 30-45 seconds at this band — fitting in one page forces clarity.

Should I include LeetCode rating or Codeforces rank on my resume?

Only if it's genuinely strong (LeetCode 1800+, Codeforces Expert+). Mid-tier ratings aren't a positive signal at this band — recruiters expect you to have real production work to talk about, not just competitive programming. Better to spend the line on an OSS or design-doc accomplishment.

What's the typical SDE-2 package in India for 2-3 YoE?

Range varies wildly: services companies pay ₹10-15 LPA, product companies ₹25-45 LPA, top-tier (Razorpay, Swiggy, CRED, Flipkart) ₹35-55 LPA, FAANG India ₹45-70 LPA. The biggest jumps come from switching company tiers, not from internal promotions.

Should I mention I'm looking for remote-only roles in my resume?

No — keep it for the cover letter or recruiter conversation. Mentioning "remote only" upfront filters you out of hybrid roles where you might still get good remote flexibility. Be open initially; negotiate location after the technical bar is cleared.