staff-resume

Staff Resume Builder

Arguments

Parse from $ARGUMENTS:

• resume-path: Path to LaTeX or markdown resume file (required — ask if not provided)
• --job-url: Optional — URL of specific job posting to tailor for
• --mode: Optional — coach (default), tailor, full (both)

Scope

Build and refine staff/principal-level engineering resumes. Not designed for non-technical resumes, cover letters, junior/mid-level roles, or academic CVs.

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Phase 1: Load Context

Read Resume

1. Read the resume file at provided path
2. Parse sections: summary, skills, experience, education, activities, open source
3. Identify current structure, bullet points, metrics, scope language

Read Job Posting (if --job-url provided)

1. Fetch job posting URL
2. Extract: title, level, requirements, tech stack, team description, company info
3. Identify keywords, scope signals, archetype match

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Phase 2: Research Best Practices

Read references/staff-resume-patterns.md in full before starting this phase.

Web Searches (3-4 searches)

Use WebSearch for each query:

1. "staff engineer resume" best practices {current_year} — latest trends
2. "staff software engineer resume" quantify impact examples — bullet point patterns
3. If job-url provided: "{company_name}" engineering culture interview process staff — company-specific intel
4. ATS optimization resume {current_year} software engineer — latest ATS advice

Synthesize Research

Combine fresh findings with the patterns from the reference file. Note any new patterns or changes from prior research.

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Phase 3: Gap Analysis

Evaluate the current resume against these staff-level criteria. For each criterion, mark as present or missing/weak with specific evidence.

Structural Gaps

Criterion	Check
Summary/positioning	Present? Positions as Staff, not Senior?
Skills organization	Categorized by domain or flat list?
Section order	Summary → Skills → Experience → OSS/Leadership → Speaking → Education?
Length	1-2 pages? Every line adds value?
ATS friendliness	Single column? Standard headers? No graphics?

Content Gaps

Criterion	Check
Scope language	Uses "org-wide", "cross-team", "company-wide"? Or weak: "helped", "worked on"?
Decision authority	Uses "Architected", "drove", "established"? Or weak: "contributed to", "participated"?
Impact metrics	Every role has quantified business impact? Revenue, scale, reliability?
Cross-team signals	Evidence of influence beyond own team?
Technical strategy	RFCs, architecture decisions, roadmap influence?
Mentoring/leadership	People grown, teams built, hiring bar set?
Open source framing	Prominent or buried?

Archetype Alignment (if job-url provided)

Determine which archetype the target role maps to (see reference file for definitions). Assess whether the resume's emphasis aligns with the target archetype.

Present Gap Analysis

Show results as a clear table of present/missing/weak findings, then use AskUserQuestion:

"Here's how your resume maps against staff-level criteria. Which gaps should we tackle first? Or should we go through all of them systematically?"

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Phase 4: Interactive Coaching Session

Skip this phase when --mode tailor. Re-read references/staff-resume-patterns.md Senior vs Staff Language section before rewriting bullets.

This is the core of the skill. Go deep on each role, one at a time.

For Each Role (most recent first)

Step 1: Challenge Current Bullets

For each bullet point, ask probing questions:

<example> - "This bullet says you 'drove X initiative.' How many teams were involved? What was the business outcome?" - "You mention 800% throughput improvement. What was the business context? How many users did this affect?" - "This reads as team-level scope. Was there any cross-team or org-wide impact you're not mentioning?" </example>

Step 2: Mine for Hidden Achievements

Ask these questions systematically:

Scope expansion:

• "What's the biggest technical decision you made that affected teams beyond yours?"
• "Did you write any RFCs, ADRs, or design docs that became org standards?"
• "Were there times you influenced the product roadmap through technical insight?"

People impact:

• "How many engineers did you mentor? Any get promoted?"
• "Did you establish any hiring processes, interview standards, or onboarding programs?"
• "Did you run any guilds, working groups, or cross-team initiatives?"

Business impact:

• "Can you connect any technical work to revenue, cost savings, or reliability improvements?"
• "What would have happened if your work didn't exist? What was the counterfactual?"
• "What scale numbers can you attach? Users, RPS, services, data volume?"

Open source / community:

• "How many external contributors did you coordinate with?"
• "What companies use the project in production?"
• "What was your specific architectural contribution vs general maintenance?"

Step 3: Rewrite Bullets Together

For each bullet, propose a staff-level rewrite using the XYZ formula from the reference file.

<example description="Before/after bullet rewrite"> Before: "Improved Kafka pipeline performance by 800%" After: "Architected event-driven pipeline redesign processing 2M events/day, reducing p99 latency 800% across 12 downstream services — adopted as org-wide messaging standard" </example>

Power verbs (Staff-level):

architected, drove, established, influenced, defined strategy,
evaluated trade-offs, owned end-to-end, scaled from X to Y,
founded initiative, shaped roadmap, designed, led, pioneered

Verbs to eliminate (Senior-level):

helped, assisted, worked on, participated in, was responsible for,
involved in, contributed to, basic knowledge of

Show before/after for each bullet and use AskUserQuestion for confirmation or additional context.

Summary Section

After processing all roles, draft 3 summary options:

1. Platform/Infra Focus — for Stripe, Databricks, traditional infra roles
2. AI Infra Pivot — for Anthropic, OpenAI, AI-adjacent roles
3. Open Source Emphasis — for CNCF-adjacent companies, community-valued orgs

Ask user to pick one or customize.

Skills Section

Propose categorized skills layout:

Systems & Languages:    [primary], [secondary] | [learning]
Distributed Systems:    [patterns, not just tools]
Cloud Native:           [tools with (contributor) tags where applicable]
Data & Messaging:       [tools]
Observability:          [tools with (contributor) tags]
Cloud Platforms:        [platforms] | [patterns like multi-cloud]
AI/ML Infrastructure:   [honest representation of current skills]

Rules:

• Remove anything assumed at Staff level (Git, SQL, basic tools)
• Never say "basic" — either you know it or don't list it, because "basic" signals a hobbyist level that undermines Staff positioning
• Add "(contributor)" for OSS projects you maintain
• Categorize by domain, not alphabetically

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Phase 5: Job-Specific Tailoring (if job-url provided)

Skip this phase when --mode coach. Re-read references/staff-resume-patterns.md ATS Optimization and Staff Archetypes sections before tailoring.

Keyword Mapping

1. Extract all technical terms and requirements from job posting
2. Map to user's experience (exact match, partial match, gap)
3. For exact matches: ensure resume mirrors exact language from JD
4. For partial matches: suggest how to frame existing experience
5. For gaps: honestly flag them, suggest how to acknowledge adjacent experience

ATS Optimization

Apply ATS rules from the reference file. Ensure both acronyms and spelled-out terms appear naturally.

Archetype Alignment

Reorder and emphasize bullets matching the target archetype (see reference file for archetype → bullet mapping).

Tailored Summary

Generate a role-specific summary that mirrors the JD language while maintaining authenticity.

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Phase 6: Generate Output

Resume Output

Generate the tailored resume preserving the user's original template/style but with:

• Restructured sections per recommendations
• Rewritten bullets from coaching session
• Updated skills section
• New or revised summary
• Properly ordered sections

Companion Analysis

Save a markdown analysis alongside the resume:

# Resume Tailoring: {Company} — {Role Title}

**Date:** {date}
**Job URL:** {url}
**Archetype:** {archetype}

## Keyword Coverage
- ✅ Exact matches: [list]
- 🟡 Partial matches: [list]
- ❌ Gaps: [list]

## Key Customizations Made
- [bullet changes]
- [summary choice]
- [skills emphasis]

## Interview Talking Points
- [3-5 points connecting resume to role]

## Honest Assessment
- Strengths for this role: [list]
- Weaknesses to prepare for: [list]

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Phase 7: Final Review

Quality Checklist

Before delivering, verify:

• Every bullet has a quantified metric or concrete scope
• No "helped", "assisted", "worked on", "responsible for" language
• Summary positions as Staff, not Senior
• Skills organized by domain, no assumed-skills listed
• Open source work has its own prominent section (if applicable)
• Speaking/community has its own section (if applicable)
• 2 pages max, every line adds value
• If job-tailored: keywords from JD are present naturally
• No "basic knowledge of" anything — to prevent diluting the Staff-level signal
• Career progression shows increasing scope

Present Final Output

Show:

1. The complete resume
2. Summary of all changes made
3. Tailoring analysis (if job-specific)
4. Suggested next steps (networking, referrals, cover letter points)

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Error Handling

• No resume path: Ask user to provide file path
• Can't parse resume: Ask user to paste raw text content
• No job URL in tailor mode: Ask for URL or switch to coach mode
• Job URL fetch fails: Ask user to paste job description text
• User unsure about metrics: Help estimate with probing questions ("roughly how many?", "order of magnitude?")
• User pushes back on rewrite: Respect their voice — offer alternatives, don't force

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Sources

• Tech Interview Handbook — Resume Guide
• StaffEng.com — Staff Archetypes
• Enhancv — Staff SWE Resume Guide
• CVOwl — Staff SWE Resume Tips
• Toptal — ATS Trends 2025
• Columbia Career — Strong Bullet Points
• Interview Kickstart — FAANG Resume