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Software and technology · Career change · UK and US conventions noted

Junior developer (career change from retail management): resume example, explained

This fictional example shows a former store manager applying for junior developer roles: the development work sits first as its own dated entry, three deployed projects are described as evidence with tests and known gaps, and the retail years keep their figures so planning and calm under pressure are shown rather than claimed. Four decisions are explained, three weak bullets are rewritten from the evidence behind them, and the editable download lets you replace every detail with your own. Nothing here describes a real person or employer.

Illustrative example. An illustrative, invented retail store manager with nine years in retail who completed a 16-week full-time coding bootcamp and six months of self-directed building, applying for junior developer roles at fictional product companies and agencies. Every employer, project and figure is fictional.

Editable version of this example (.docx)

The example document

Danielle Kowalczyk-Mensah

Junior Software Developer · TypeScript, React, Node.js, PostgreSQL · Nine years managing retail teams

Bristol (open to hybrid and remote) · 07700 900 377 · danielle.km@example.com · projects: example.com/danielle-km

Profile

Junior developer who completed a 16-week full-time bootcamp in 2026 after nine years in retail management, most recently running a fictional 40-person homeware store. Has shipped three deployed projects with tests, a readme and a public issue list, including a stock-count tool in weekly use at a fictional independent shop. Brings a store manager's habits: planning work, writing clear handovers and staying calm when something breaks at the busiest moment.

Experience

Developer (bootcamp capstone and a commissioned project) — Fictional Code Academy, then self-directed

January 2026 – present · 16-week full-time bootcamp (TypeScript, React, Node.js, PostgreSQL) followed by six months of building and maintaining deployed projects.

  • Built a stock-count web app for a fictional independent gift shop in TypeScript, React and Node.js on PostgreSQL, replacing a paper count; the owner now counts around 600 product lines in one evening instead of two.
  • Wrote 140 unit and integration tests across three deployed projects and set up a CI pipeline that runs them on every pull request; each readme explains the data model and the known gaps.
  • Organised a four-person capstone team with a daily stand-up and a shared board; the team delivered a bookings prototype on the final day with all 12 planned user stories complete.
  • Closed 23 issues raised by bootcamp peers and the gift-shop owner on the public issue lists, each with a linked commit and a short note on the cause.

Store Manager — Fictional Homeware Retail Ltd

June 2019 – December 2025 · 40-person store; previously assistant manager and sales assistant at the same fictional chain from 2017.

  • Managed a team of 40 across sales floor, stockroom and tills, writing the weekly rota and holding monthly one-to-ones; staff turnover fell from about a third to under a fifth of the team a year over two years.
  • Owned the store's stock-accuracy cycle, running 12 full counts a year and daily gap checks; shrinkage stayed within the company target in every quarter for three years.
  • Kept a December Saturday trading through a card-payment outage by moving the till team to the offline procedure within ten minutes.
  • Trained 14 new starters on the point-of-sale and stock systems with a one-page checklist I wrote, which the regional manager adopted for two other stores.

Education

  • Full-time software development bootcamp (16 weeks), Fictional Code Academy, 2026
  • Self-study: an online computer science fundamentals course (data structures and algorithms), completed 2026
  • A levels (three), Fictional Sixth Form College, 2016

Projects (described here; links on the contact line)

  • Stock-count app: TypeScript, React, Node.js, PostgreSQL; authenticated accounts, barcode entry, CSV export; 68 tests; deployed and in weekly use by one fictional shop.
  • Rota planner: a React app that builds a fortnightly rota from availability and minimum-cover rules; 47 tests; the readme documents the constraint rules and the three cases it still gets wrong.
  • Bookings prototype (capstone, team of four): Node.js API with role-based access; 25 tests; my part was the availability endpoint and the CI setup.

Skills

JavaScript and TypeScript · React (hooks, component tests) · Node.js REST APIs and PostgreSQL (schema design, joins, migrations) · Git and pull-request workflow; CI on every push · Unit and integration testing; test-first bug fixes · Debugging with browser developer tools and server logs · Planning and prioritising work; clear written handovers

Bullet rewrites, and the evidence behind them

Each rewrite was produced by asking an evidence question and using only the (fictional) answer. No number appears in a rewrite that is not in its evidence.

  1. Before

    Built a stock app as a bootcamp project.

    Evidence question

    Who uses it, what did it replace, what is the stack and what changed for the user?

    Evidence (fictional)

    Built for a fictional independent gift shop in TypeScript, React, Node.js and PostgreSQL; replaced a paper count; the owner now counts around 600 product lines in one evening rather than two.

    After

    Built a stock-count web app for a fictional independent gift shop in TypeScript, React and Node.js on PostgreSQL, replacing a paper count; the owner now counts around 600 product lines in one evening instead of two.

  2. Before

    Managed a busy store and a large team.

    Evidence question

    How many people, across which functions, and what measurable result did your management produce?

    Evidence (fictional)

    Team of 40 across sales floor, stockroom and tills; weekly rota and monthly one-to-ones; annual staff turnover fell from about a third to under a fifth of the team over two years.

    After

    Managed a team of 40 across sales floor, stockroom and tills, writing the weekly rota and holding monthly one-to-ones; staff turnover fell from about a third to under a fifth of the team a year over two years.

  3. Before

    Good at problem solving and working under pressure.

    Evidence question

    When did something break at the worst moment, and what exactly did you do?

    Evidence (fictional)

    Card-payment outage at the tills on a December Saturday; the till team switched to the offline procedure within ten minutes; separately, 23 issues on the project issue lists closed, each with a linked commit and a note on the cause.

    After

    Kept a December Saturday trading through a card-payment outage by moving the till team to the offline procedure within ten minutes; now applies the same habit to code, having closed 23 raised issues each with a linked commit and a note on the cause.

Try it on your own bullets with the bullet workbench, which asks the same questions and never adds a figure you did not supply.

Transferable skills in this example

  • Planning and sequencing work

    Evidence: Weekly rotas for 40 people and 12 stock counts a year; a shared board and daily stand-up for the capstone team.

    Where it helps: Sprint planning, estimating tickets and keeping a team informed, which junior developers are often weakest on.

  • Systems discipline

    Evidence: Stock accuracy kept within target for three years; CI on every pull request; readmes that record known gaps.

    Where it helps: Any engineering team that values repeatable process, and QA or support-engineering routes into tech.

  • Staying calm when something breaks at the busiest moment

    Evidence: A card-payment outage handled by switching the tills to the offline procedure within ten minutes.

    Where it helps: Incident response, on-call and customer-facing engineering roles.

  • Teaching from a written checklist

    Evidence: 14 new starters trained with a one-page checklist that two other stores adopted.

    Where it helps: Writing documentation, onboarding new team members and developer-support roles.

Occupation notes

Hard requirements

  • Junior developer roles are unregulated and rarely require a degree. The hard requirements are the advert's named stack, shown in deployed work rather than a course certificate, and right to work in the country of hire, checked through the verified employer process at the stage required in that country rather than stated on the resume.
  • Where an employer asks for 'commercial experience', say honestly that the projects are not commercial, then show the nearest equivalent: a real user, a public issue list and a release you maintain.

Vocabulary that belongs on the page

  • Pull request, code review, merge, branch
  • Unit test, integration test, test coverage, CI pipeline
  • REST API, endpoint, schema, migration
  • Readme, issue tracker, known issues, changelog
  • Deployed / in production, environment variables, hosting
  • Stand-up, sprint, user story, backlog
  • Pair programming, debugging, stack trace

Pitfalls specific to this occupation

  • Opening with the retail job title, so a developer skimming for a junior developer never reaches the projects.
  • Listing bootcamp exercises as projects; only work with a decision, tests and a user (even one) counts as evidence for a developer role.
  • Reducing nine years of retail management to 'customer service and teamwork' and throwing away the figures that prove planning and systems discipline.
  • Claiming a stack from a two-hour tutorial; every technology in the skills line should appear in a repository the applicant can walk through in an interview.

UK and US differences

  • UK: Two pages is acceptable for a UK career-change resume when page two carries only the earlier retail roles; development work and projects stay on page one.
  • US: A US resume for this applicant would be one page: projects and skills at the top, the retail role compressed to three bullets, and no photo or date of birth. Employers often ask for a portfolio link in the application form, so keep the projects page current.

Common questions

Should a career changer put the bootcamp or the old job first on a junior developer resume?

Neither: put the development work first as its own entry, with dates, stack and projects described as evidence. The bootcamp is one line in education and the old job follows with the figures that show transferable habits.

How do I show commercial experience when my only development work is projects?

Be honest that it is not commercial, then show the closest substitute: a real user, deployed code, a public issue list you have worked through and tests that run in CI. Interviewers can probe those; they cannot probe a certificate.

Keep going

Published 6 November 2026 · Every person, employer and figure in this example is fictional. Drafted with AI assistance and checked against Luceria’s editorial standards.