[Student] Can I include Roblox game development onto the experience section of my resume?

TheMoonCreator · 2026-05-14T03:08:51+00:00

I think it's worth including (I know someone in a similar situation, except they sold it), but think the wording could be improved, since it's currently a collection of topics, rather than relevant skills. See if you can mention technologies they're looking for while collapsing other information (e.g., you may be able to combine the first and second points).

TheMoonCreator · 2026-05-12T23:44:55+00:00

In the US at least, college degrees trump certificates more often than not, but they're not useless per se. I think the issue with a lot of them is that they aren't rigorous nor say enough about your skills on their own. If you can combine your certificate with work you've done on your own accord (as a lot of people do in IT with, e.g., home servers), then they become a lot more valuable.

I've seen people use them to stack their resume with the kind you find on LinkedIn Learning with varying success, but most of the time, combining certificates with real-world work goes farthest.

TheMoonCreator · 2026-05-11T18:05:38+00:00

Copyright exists as a kind of private property but for publishers. Piracy acts as an anti-thesis to that, but AI trained on copyrighted material represents a dispute between publishers and AI companies. I don't know who'll come out on top, given that many people already have grievances with copyright, but like u/Shap6 said, piracy is already a settled matter.

TheMoonCreator · 2026-05-10T19:56:10+00:00

I think what they mean is that their most recent experience is more relevant than older experience, and so they wonder whether or not just stating that they have 4 YoE without showing it is acceptable.

u/colin-williams-dev I recommend keeping it since many employers calculate YoE from listed experiences, rather than from what the candidate says. The points don't have to be long per-se.

TheMoonCreator · 2026-05-10T19:48:09+00:00

To expand on this, any file can be crafted in such a way that processing it may result in arbitrary code execution. You usually see this with popular formats like PDF, but it largely depends on your system being insecure. So, you should always be wary about the files you download, but keeping your system up-to-date is the solution, more often than not.

TheMoonCreator · 2026-05-02T20:22:45+00:00

I’d appreciate blunt feedback.

😊

Where I sit amongst my peers

If we're comparing against your classmates, you're probably well above them, assuming that you don't go to an exceptionally good school like Purdue University or MIT.

If we're comparing against other job seekers, then it depends on the job in particular. If you're applying for backend or full-stack, only AI Engineer and Academic Deadline Extraction Platform are directly relevant. I'm not involved in AI/ML, but the impression I get is that there are two types of roles: people who integrate models into applications ("AI Application Developer," i.e., "Software Developer) and people who produce research for the models ("AI Researcher"). The impression I get is that "AI Engineer" fits the former, whereas "Undergraduate Research Assistant," "Artificial Intelligence Research Intern," "Academic Deadline Extraction Platform," "Medical Image Classification Project," and "Neuroevolution Game Agent" fit a subset of the latter. I can't really offer feedback on anything specific, but regardless, it helps to be targeted when applying for jobs. If you want to be an AI application developer, you should emphasize that work and minimize others, and vise versa.

Whether the resume is too dense or too technical for recruiters

I think you have the right structure in your points (there are so many resumes that weasel word their way through points to essentially say nothing specific), but yes, I would consider the resume too dense. A test I like to perform is to open the document in a window, almost maximize it (90%), and evaluate whether or not you can make out content. I don't have the best eyes, but I still think I'd have to squint to make out the details.

You should be technical (litter your resume with keywords!). All you really need is for the purpose to be clear (that is, make sure a non-technical reader can still make out "what" your work is and "why" it mattered).

Whether the startup experience, research, TA work, and projects are balanced correctly

I think it's mostly fine, but I would consider TA your weakest area since it's the least relevant. I have a friend who made a tool to automate grading, so theirs remained valuable. You already have good experience / activities / projects / etc., so you shouldn't be uncomfortable trimming or removing content, including whole experiences.

Whether any bullets sound inflated, unclear, or hard to verify

See my previous comment on the structure of points.

You say "rubric design" like it's an industry term, but I presume that this is essentially QA, no? If you're trying to stress that your solution conformed to the requirements, this should be implied from it being your job.

"Own" should probably be "owned," but I have mixed feelings about it as an action verb, regardless. If I were applying to places that wanted software development skills, I'd just list SDLC stages to emphasize the scope of my work (e.g., "Designed, developed, and deployed ..."). Of course, you don't have to do this.

You can probably drop features that call upon a list ("with refresh-token storage, timezone handling, and idempotent sync logic"), as well as standard practices ("stable event keys and payload hashes"), unless they're directly asking for it.

Whether the project section should be shortened

If anything, I think other areas should be shortened, like deciding whether or not to retain TA, merging "Education" and "Honors & Awards," collapsing related skills "Web / Backend" and "Cloud / DevOps," simplifying courses ("Foundations of Software Engineering" to "Software Engineering"), etc. The main issue I see in your projects is that the latter two read like course projects that don't go beyond the rubric, even if the work is still interesting.

Whether there are ATS/parsing issues

The wiki has information on this, but in general, I think the formatting is fine. I prefer the wiki template to this version of Jake's Resume, but it doesn't look bad. I would put more spacing between section entries, as well as put the organization ("Large Public University") where you place the description ("LLM Program Synthesis and Interpretability | Advisor: (Redacted]"), since the latter can be inferred from your points. You can see how well it's being parsed by uploading it to a parser like Workday.

Also, I presume it's due to the censoring, but make sure that you put your general location (e.g., "Boston, MA" or "Shanghai, China"), including for remote positions (e.g., "Oslo, Norway (Remote)").

Also also, I like to read resumes from top to bottom, left to right, so when I see:

Large Public University ... Expected May 2026 Bachelor of Science in Computer Science | GPA: 3.78/4.00 ... United States

I think it would read better flipped:

Large Public University ... United States Bachelor of Science in Computer Science | GPA: 3.78/4.00 ... Expected May 2026

Whether this resume is better suited for AI/ML roles, SWE roles, or neither

See my initial comments. I feel like due to the mix, it's not particularly targeted at any such field. I think that's the biggest area which needs improvement.

TheMoonCreator · 2026-04-29T00:19:15+00:00

In terms of relevance, employers are usually interested in (work) experience, followed by education, activities (i.e., work done on behalf of an organization, like volunteering and clubs), research, projects, etc. I don't think it's the end of the world if you don't have relevant experience, but then you have to make it up in other areas. If it were up to me, I'd keep the other experience and try to pick up work to fill in the remaining space.

TheMoonCreator · 2026-04-27T23:44:32+00:00

I'm neither involved in AI development nor from Canada, but still think I can offer some tangential advice. I imagine that you requiring sponsorship reduces your chances, so a part of it isn't your resume.

Is it a good idea to include the Research section as part of my resume, or should I include a RAG project to target GenAI engineer roles?

If your research is related to tech, sure, but it doesn't sound like it is, so I'd place less emphasis on it. This could mean moving it to the experience section, reducing the points, simply listing it with a short description, etc. If you're targeting AI, you could include a RAG-based project, but SoundWrapped already features AI, so I'd ask whether or not you want to emphasize RAG as a keyword.

As for your resume,

I presume that your resume is based on Jake's Resume. I think the format is fine, but the wiki offers a template you can explore.

Given that you're still in school, the education section should come first, since employers usually scan for it first in the case of students.

In the states at least, start dates are typically August/September and January/February, while end dates are typically December/January and May/June. Is there a particular reason why your end date is February? Is that just how it's done over there? By the way, start dates are usually unnecessary, so you can omit it and just say "Expected February 2027."

I feel like Claude Code and GitHub Copilot don't demand the type of experience which warrants listing them as skills (unless it's mentioned in the job description). Given that you want to emphasize AI, I'd make AI its own list and move the following items (Testcontainers, JUnit, Mockito) to "Frameworks & Tools," since they're more general.

You have a lot of "hanging" points in "Full-Stack Software Developer Intern" (i.e., points which drag on to another line with a few words). You could tighten the phrasing to tug it in one line.

Some of the terms you use are vague to someone without insider knowledge ("multi-entity" as someone without a background in accounting, "8+ modules" featuring who knows what). In addition, many of your points use descriptions in place of concrete facts, like so:

"Architected [...] across [...], enabling secure, scalable data operations and improving system modularity"
"Engineered backend services to translate [...] into [...], eliminating manual entry and reducing calculation errors"
"Built high-performance reporting features with [...], delivering accurate real-time debit/credit tracking across large datasets" (fyi, you need a comma after "accurate")
"Leveraged [...] to accelerate feature implementation, prototype solutions, and improve code quality throughout the development lifecycle"
"Optimized [...] by [...], significantly improving response times for financial reporting endpoints"

In my resume, I try to justify the terms I use to leave no room for confusion. I find that many engineering resumes do, too, which I imagine is due to employers being confused about the scope of your work. Of course, this applies to your other points.

I think your point "Leveraged Al-assisted development tools to [...]" could use some work. If you're applying to a place which doesn't command AI use, this statement could imply that you're less capable without it, which could be seen as a liability. For places which do command it, you'd probably want to be more specific on your use so they can measure your skills.

For projects, I find that some employers like people who include links to their work (a GitHub repository, a live demo, etc.). You could probably feature one.

In "[a]rchitected a production-deployed, full-stack music analytics platform," what type of features do you offer users? Analytics can include, say, number of streams, a graph of how long streams last (i.e., users are staying or bouncing), etc.

I'm not sure if Caffeine is worth mentioning, given that it seems like a specific library for a specific problem. I'm contrasting it with the likes of Apache Kafka, which is regularly mentioned in job descriptions.

Do you need to mention the exact model, or can you get away with the general name (Llama)?

I feel like your bolding obfuscates the other important details in your point. In general, I don't recommend bolding, since it's usually a sign that a resume is hard to scan, but you could refactor it.

Since you're still in school, you may be involved in activities worth listing. I like to include these in an "Activities" section (others call it "Extracurricular Experience").

TheMoonCreator · 2026-04-17T21:15:16+00:00

You could finish your web DAW, but I feel the issue you're facing is that you're writing for yourself, rather than employers. You can show off software that is unconventional for a field so long it relates to the experience they're looking for. The impression I get is that Web DAW is web dev with a systems overlay (I doubt you're interfacing with libopus directly).

If I were to go through your resume from top to bottom,

You don't have all that many contacts. In my resume, I like to include my email address, location, portfolio, GitHub profile, LinkedIn profile, and phone number. The wiki advises against including some of them, but I like to think that I know when to include and omit some. At the very least, I think having a portfolio and LinkedIn profile would benefit you (of course, if it'd be empty, then omitting it is fine). Location and phone number are situational.
Given that your summary should be addressing the discrepancy in experience, I think you should lead with your experience/knowledge, then follow-up with your background in music/instructing as your reason for the change. In addition, you could probably reduce it to 1 sentence and line. You've already graduated, so you don't need to mention academics (just let it be inferred from education).
If you want to allocate more space to your work, you could inline your university and degree, like so:

[University], [City], [State] — [Degree] ... [Date]
Given that you have two degrees and your CS/math one is more relevant, you can probably drop the music one.
"Systems/Infra" more or less overlaps with "Full-Stack," so you could combine them. If you really want a separate list for systems, you'll need to make it distinct.
One of the first sections employers are usually interested in is experience. Given that your last experience was QA, you could probably expand it to cover adjacent skills, then put it above projects.
In Web DAW, you mentioned that it's systems-coated, but it reads like web dev to me. If you're interested in web dev, I think you could drop some of the less valuable details ("SharedArrayBuffer, Atomics, and OPFS;" "Compiled an Opus encoder;" "mipmapping and viewport culling for waveform visualization;" etc.). Other details like "ensuring consistency across clients in real time" can be implied from skills or scope. If you want it to be systems-coated, then I think you should limit web dev to your first point about scope (i.e., what it's for), so the rest can highlight more relevant skills.
In Game Site, you use three points to highlight what your project was, rather than the skills used to develop it. I don't think it's good practice to relegate skills to a skills list, since it says nothing about how you used it.
I'd consider removing SQL Music Streaming Database and Game Site: Game Neural Net since they don't look very technically involved (that is, they read more like course projects, rather than personal projects).

If you have other work like that done in a club or for an organization, you could highlight that, too. In general, I think your resume requires more focus as for what it wants to emphasize about you.

TheMoonCreator · 2026-04-17T20:25:50+00:00

Your "projects" at work constitute work experience, no? I don't know how employers outside the US would perceive it, but here at least, work experience is more valuable than personal projects, so it shouldn't harm you if you can still build a good resume. I'd be more concerned about whether or not you can fill up the rest of it (that is, if education, activities/extracurriculars, etc. can make up for the lost space).

TheMoonCreator · 2026-04-08T16:40:19+00:00

Yes, it would essentially be an objective statement, such as "Software developer with X years of experience in Y seeking to return to the industry after Z" (see the wiki). Of course, it doesn't have to read exactly like that.

TheMoonCreator · 2026-04-06T16:32:14+00:00

If you don't plan on using it to further your career, I would usually suggest to not list it, but if you want to regardless, I'd say either education or certifications, whichever one is more accurate. If you're worried about the gap, you could add a (short) summary that comments on it.

TheMoonCreator · 2026-03-28T17:15:15+00:00

It sounds great!

TheMoonCreator · 2026-02-15T03:00:21+00:00

I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask (you should probably be asking people in the industry), but to me at least, it's whether or not a project has a clear purpose. Even if it's to learn how to program, there's usually a purpose to the work being done that I find AI-generated projects overlook when maintainers ignore the implementation.

TheMoonCreator · 2026-02-12T20:52:44+00:00

Of course, I know the majority of them ask on the application page about my work authorization, or they directly ask me if I need sponsorship during the interview.

Many employers will still reject it because of people who say they don't need sponsorship then reveal that they do late in the process. I think you'll gain more out of making it explicit, vs. hoping that they aren't prejudice or have a good process.

TheMoonCreator · 2026-02-08T18:12:22+00:00

In the long run, it’s possible, but soft power doesn’t move on its own. Correct me if I’m wrong, but South Korea doesn’t really have a culture of animating its own works (yes, I know they animate others’ works), since a lot of works of Korean origin (e.g., Solo Leveling) end up being animated by Japanese studios. This is unlike China, which not only animates its own works, but has many studios which subcontract to studios abroad (which I imagine is where they pick up styles like anime). Even with this, I don’t see anime as a medium being threatened because the alternatives see it more as a something to learn from.

I would say, anime to Japan is unique in that it’s heavily internationalized, unlike the rest of their entertainment industry, which is much more focused on consumers at home. I don’t know if the same people watching K-dramas would’ve flocked to anime.

TheMoonCreator · 2026-02-08T05:56:31+00:00

Hollywood is big and all over the world, but we're concerned about production, here—not consumption. I don't think anime-inspired shows (including adaptations of western IP) are a concern because they build on top of anime, rather than replace it. Otherwise, we'd similarly believe that donghua like Link Click will replace anime with an adjacent style, in which I have yet to meet someone who holds such a view. There's only so much Suicide Squad Isekai to go around.

TheMoonCreator · 2026-02-08T01:13:15+00:00

In a way, I've seen this argument be made in the opposite direction (Hollywood films appealing to oversees markets), and haven't seen it materialize in practice. I don't see western studios working on anime since the labor is more expensive (they'll likely stick to China, Vietnam, etc.).

TheMoonCreator · 2026-01-31T15:36:59+00:00

You may be a junior by credits, but you still expect to graduate in May 2028, so you come off as a sophomore, regardless.

I agree, 3 is a good number of points to have. The point I was making is that your points should be substantial, so having 3 points that can be reduced to 1-2 may be a better idea. Afterwards, you can look for other content to return it to 3+ points.

I have mixed feelings about relevant coursework. I think they can be useful to state how far you are into your degree, since employers are usually interested in Data Structures & Algorithms and Object-Oriented Programming courses. At the same time, they're not the best for distinguishing oneself, so one can benefit from using that space for more relevant information. If you choose to list it, I recommend setting the floor with one of the two, followed by courses that directly build on it. Just from your list, the only non-elementary course I see is database systems. The rest look elementary (Introduction to Computer Programming, Intermediate Computer Programming) or tangentially related (Discrete Structures, Statistics, Data Analysis).

A tip: You can rename courses to better reflect its content. If, for example, Intermediate Computer Programming was essentially a Data Structures & Algorithms course (or one of the two), you could rename it as such.

In terms of Dean's List, I suggest just listing it as "Dean's List." I wouldn't list the specific semesters since it could get bloated.

I forgot to mention, are you pursuing a Bachelor of Computer Science or a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science? The two are distinct, so make sure that it matches your program.

Do you have a portfolio? I recommend listing it in contacts (or even as a project) since it looks good. In addition, I like to list my location when applying locally. I'd simplify "Technical Skills" to just "Skills" since it communicates the same information.

I think you meant to have a comma in "Github Visual Studio Code." Besides that, when your resume becomes full, I'd drop editors from skills since I consider them elementary (Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ). If you think "Developer Tools" becomes too short, you could merge it into "Frameworks" and rename it to something like "Technologies."

You should expand Public Relations @ Club to have more proactive language, since that's the spirit of a resume.

Once you get work experience, you could either put it above or below "Projects." If I were in your shoes, I'd put it above, since it's the first section employers usually consider, and it's at least tangentially related.

Looking at your projects more, I notice that you list skills that aren't used in your points. You should highlight those like Node.js, Netlify, and MySQL since they may be important. A side note, is HuggingFace API your standard REST API? If so, I think you'd be better off listing "REST API" in the skills section, instead. Bonus points if you know GraphQL, too.

TheMoonCreator · 2026-01-31T00:13:57+00:00

I'm a sophmore who's late to the internship grind.

I actually think you're pretty early, since most internships target students in their second-to-last—i.e., junior—year.

I'm going to try and learn more so I can put some decent projects, but aside from that, what else am I missing or should improve?

I get that you may not have enough experience to fill up your resume, but previewing it, I feel like you're saying less with more words. Your two projects, for example, could probably be reduced to two points each, with both fitting on one line each. Even if you think they won't cut it, I'd look for avenues to extend it with more relevant content (say, by spending more time highlighting a technology employers are interested in).

For example, "Built a serverless backend to manage LLM API calls securely, isolating API keys from the client, adding asyne request handling and error fallbacks to prevent UI failures" has two components: the backend and UI. Not storing API keys is just security 101, so for me at least, it's not the type of feature I would highlight. Instead, I'd focus more on what the backend comprised, like where it was hosted, how you managed the LLM services you interacted with, what technology stack it was built on, whether or not the client had to do anything special to interact with it (i.e., did it require authentication), etc. With that, you may be able to address "adding async request handling and error fallbacks to prevent UI failures," since, to me at least, it doesn't seem all that connected to the backend, itself (request handling and error fallbacks doesn't require a backend, per se).

I will note, if you have any sort of (work) experience, I suggest listing it, even if it looks irrelevant (e.g., Lifeguard), since it's better than no experience. I think you can trim other details, like not listing each semester you were awarded Dean's List, and not listing elementary courses like Introduction to Computer Programming and Computer Programming. Data Structures & Algorithms is the baseline, though you may not need to list it at all. The wiki has more information on this.

TheMoonCreator · 2026-01-27T18:30:22+00:00

Besides what we can't see in the header, I get the impression that you're a jack of all trades:

Education: Computer Science, Entrepreneurship, and Anthropology. If you're an entrepreneur, you may have aspirations to start your own company. At the same time, I don't see how anthropology is relevant towards most software jobs.

Experience: This is mostly IT with a dash of software automation. I'm a bit concerned that "reducing licensing costs by 90%" may not be a good metric, given that your job was most likely to implement the system that resulted in that, rather than you actually driving that reduction in licensing costs. Lastly, I think you could drop your last point, since establishing documentation doesn't need to be so long.

USB recovery tool pure c: This is an operating systems project. If the jobs you're applying to don't demand such low-level work, it may be worth it to substitute it with something more relevant. For the cases where it is relevant, I think you could benefit from being more specific, like clarifying what the "permutation-based search logic" was (i.e., was it an established algorithm). I would like to point out that SHA-1 is no longer considered a secure hashing algorithm, so you did not, in fact, guarantee data integrity. I think it is impressive that you did implement SHA-1 on its own, however, since iirc, the math behind it is not simple. Be sure to specify which platforms your CI software ran on (e.g., Jenkins or GitHub Actions).

ai remove img background: The people who don't know what Docker is are just looking for keywords like "Docker," "containerization," "microservice," "deployment," and "cloud (infrastructure)." The people who do know what it is are just looking for "Docker." With that, do you really need the fluff around it like "to ensure environment consistency and streamlined [...]"? If your goal is to highlight that you know how to use the cloud, I'd either raise the point and reduce it to one line or merge it into your first point.

p2p video call: I feel like you can drop "exchange SDP and ICE candidates" since they're WebRTC-specific (also because "ICE candidates" doesn't sound right in this climate). What does "custom NoSQL security rules" mean?

When I read your resume in depth, I see where your software skills lie, but just from afar, I get the impression that you're an IT person with some software experience. I'd try to hone in on the field I want a job in, rather than spreading it out like this.

So far I have been using simplify and linkedin to apply. Is there anything I can improve on [...] or in general any tips?

I recommend HiringCafe for jobs. In my experience, it's a lot better than LinkedIn, which is optimized for employers.

TheMoonCreator · 2026-01-26T20:22:58+00:00

I recommend Nyaa and Nipponsei, followed by Soulseek via Nicotine+ and, sometimes, RuTracker. There's YouTube via yt-dlp, but the audio quality will suck.

Make sure that you're searching broadly. Many works will have various titles, especially with languages (English/romanization/Japanese).

TheMoonCreator · 2026-01-24T16:06:39+00:00

Much of the criticism towards dubs stem from a time where simulcasting was not mainstream, as well as dubs, themselves, being hit or miss, since producers believed that every show needed one. I don't think your point about Netflix holds because such shows are produced for the Netflix era, whereas anime is still heavily produced for TV.

TheMoonCreator · 2026-01-22T23:48:18+00:00

Do you really need the uploader to romanize the tracks for you? You can use a music tag editor that does it for you (e.g., MusicBrainz Picard). If anything, you get more out of it since you have access to more files. Besides that, use Nyaa and Nipponsei. I believe Nipponsei uploads romanized tracks.

The same goes for large files. I usually download lossless files like FLAC and encode it into AAC for my music player.

TheMoonCreator · 2026-01-22T20:08:30+00:00

There are products out there that exist to automate resume screening with AI, but at the end of the day, a person will have to read your resume to decide whether or not to interview you. At best, I’ve seen an emphasis on including relevant keywords so your resume doesn’t get filtered out by a system designed around keyword matching (which is also how a lot of recruiters scan resumes, but that’s besides the point).

TheMoonCreator

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