Software engineer job search: CV, cover letter and offer review

Author's original introduction

Use this skill when a software engineer asks for help with job search tasks: parsing or analyzing a job description, tailoring a CV/resume, writing a cover letter, evaluating a job offer, or drafting a post-interview follow-up email. Do not activate for general career advice unrelated to an active job search action.

SkillPi interpretation

Tasks

Software engineer job search: CV, cover letter and offer review

Audience

Software engineers actively applying for jobs.

Inputs and outputs

Job description and truthful applicant material → analysis and application drafts.

Software, accounts and paid services

An AI assistant and supplied application documents; compensation comparisons need external sources. Confirm actual file access and external-service permissions in your host. Domains referenced in the documents (not a runtime allowlist): No HTTP(S) domain stated.

Limits and differences

Document-based interpretation; scripts, assets, external services and compatibility have not been runtime tested.

Testing

Not tested

Security rating and access scope

caution · Static evidence review; not a runtime safety guarantee.

An AI assistant and supplied application documents; compensation comparisons need external sources. Confirm actual file access and external-service permissions in your host. Domains referenced in the documents (not a runtime allowlist): No HTTP(S) domain stated.

Before use, confirm and authorize actual file access, external services and network destinations in your host. This review grants no runtime permissions.

Original SKILL.md

---
name: technical-job-search
description: 'Use this skill when a software engineer asks for help with job search tasks: parsing or analyzing a job description, tailoring a CV/resume, writing a cover letter, evaluating a job offer, or drafting a post-interview follow-up email. Do not activate for general career advice unrelated to an active job search action.'
license: MIT
argument-hint: 'Optional: the specific task — e.g. "analyze this JD", "tailor my CV", "write cover letter", "evaluate this offer"'
---

# Technical Job Search

Helps software engineers with discrete job search tasks: job description analysis, CV tailoring, cover letter writing, offer evaluation, and follow-up emails.

---

## Job Description Analysis

When given a job description, extract and structure:

**Must-haves** (explicitly required or repeated multiple times):
- Technical skills, years of experience, specific domain knowledge

**Nice-to-haves** (preferred, a bonus, or mentioned once):
- List these separately. Candidates often disqualify themselves over requirements that are actually optional.

**What the role actually solves** (inferred from the description):
- Summarize in 2-3 sentences what business problem this hire addresses

**Red flags to surface**:
- "Wear many hats" with no clarity on scope — risk of undefined ownership
- 10+ must-have technologies for a single role — unrealistic bar or poor team planning
- No mention of team size, tech stack, or what the role ships — may indicate disorganization

---

## CV / Resume Tailoring

When tailoring a CV to a specific job description:

1. **Match language exactly** — use the same terminology as the JD, not synonyms. If the JD says "distributed systems", do not write "large-scale systems".
2. **Lead with impact** — every bullet should have a result: "Reduced P99 latency by 40%" not "Worked on performance improvements".
3. **Quantify everything possible** — users, QPS, team size, cost saved, revenue impact.
4. **Cut what does not match** — a two-page CV tailored to the role beats a four-page generic one.
5. **Mirror the seniority signals** — entry roles want "built", senior roles want "designed", staff and principal roles want "drove" or "defined".

Do not keyword-stuff. Write for the hiring manager reading it, not for an ATS parser.

---

## Cover Letter Writing

A cover letter should answer three questions in under 300 words:

1. **Why this company?** Something specific — a product, a technical challenge they have written about, a problem space you care about. Not "I admire your mission."
2. **Why you?** One or two concrete things from your background that directly match what they need. Link to the specific role, not your full career history.
3. **Why now?** What is your motivation at this point in your career? One sentence.

Format: three short paragraphs. No preamble ("I am writing to apply for..."). No summary of your CV.

Avoid:
- Restating your CV in prose form
- "I am passionate about..."
- Generic company praise ("a leader in the industry", "innovative company")
- Going longer than one page

---

## Offer Evaluation

When evaluating a job offer, compare across these dimensions:

**Compensation**
- Base salary: check against market rate for role, level, and location (levels.fyi, Glassdoor, Blind, Comprehensive.io)
- Equity: current valuation, vesting schedule (4-year with 1-year cliff is standard), dilution risk for early-stage companies
- Bonus: target percentage vs actual historical payout
- Total comp = base + expected bonus + annualized equity value

**Role clarity**
- Scope: what does "owning" this role actually mean vs what is already decided?
- Team: size, structure, who you report to, tenure of the team
- Growth: what does the next level look like and how long do people typically take to get there?

**Company health**
- Stage: runway, revenue, growth rate — ask directly if not public
- Engineering culture signals: PR review process, incident postmortem culture, on-call burden
- Remote or hybrid reality: written policy vs actual practice

**Red flags in an offer**
- Pressure to decide in under 48 hours — a reasonable window is one to two weeks
- Equity with no clear liquidity path for a company that has been private for 10+ years
- A role described as greenfield that turns out to have 6 months of existing unmaintained code

Get everything in writing before accepting.

---

## Follow-up Emails

After an interview, send a follow-up within 24 hours:
- One sentence thanking them for the time
- One sentence referencing something specific from the conversation (a problem discussed, a question they asked)
- One sentence reaffirming interest, if genuine

Do not write multiple paragraphs. Do not restate your qualifications. Do not follow up more than once if there is no reply.

Copyright and license notice

MIT License

Copyright GitHub, Inc.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.