Technical Support Engineer CV Examples & Writing Guide

This CV is for a 2nd line engineer at a payroll software company who started in 1st line at an education software firm. Support managers read it in a set order: what products and stack, how deep the troubleshooting goes, then the metrics. Name and companies are made up; the numbers are the kind your ticketing system's reports already show you.

The person screening your CV is usually a support manager or team lead, not HR, and they have carried a queue themselves. They are asking four questions.

• How deep do you go? 1st line resets passwords and follows scripts. 2nd line reads logs, queries databases, tests APIs and reproduces bugs. 3rd line or 'support engineering' writes scripts and works inside the code. Your bullets should show the deepest layer you actually touched, with the tool named (Datadog, SQL, Postman, Wireshark).
• Have you supported a product like ours? B2B SaaS, hardware, networking kit, enterprise on-premise software and consumer apps are different worlds. Name the product type, the customer type (IT admins, developers, end users) and the scale.
• What do your metrics look like? Tickets per week, first-contact resolution, CSAT, SLA compliance, median resolution time, escalation rate, knowledge base articles. If you do not know yours, pull the agent report from your ticketing tool before you write.
• Can you write? Case notes, bug reports and knowledge base articles are half the job. A CV with typos or vague bullets answers this question for you.

“I skip CVs that say 'provided technical support to customers'. Tell me you worked SSO and API tickets, that you closed 60% without engineering, and that your bug reports came with logs. That is a tier 2 engineer. Everything else I can teach.”

Each bullet should say what kind of issue, how you diagnosed it, and a number for volume or quality. Seven rewrites of lines that appear on most technical support engineer CVs:

Group the skills so a manager can find the layer they care about. List tools you have used on real tickets, not ones you watched a video about. Sixteen to twenty items is enough.

• Troubleshooting methods: log analysis, HAR files and browser dev tools, packet captures (Wireshark), API testing (Postman, cURL), SQL queries, reproducing issues in test environments, root cause analysis.
• Systems and networking: Windows, macOS, Linux command line, Active Directory and Azure AD, DNS, DHCP, TCP/IP, HTTP status codes, TLS certificates, VPN, firewalls, Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace administration.
• Product and integration knowledge: REST APIs, webhooks, SSO (SAML, OAuth), SFTP imports, the specific platforms you supported (name them).
• Support tools: Zendesk, Freshdesk, Jira Service Management, ServiceNow, Salesforce Service Cloud, Intercom, remote support tools (TeamViewer, BeyondTrust, Zoom).
• Scripting (if real): PowerShell, Bash or Python for log parsing and repetitive fixes. Say 'basic' if it is basic.
• Working skills: writing clear case notes and bug reports, explaining technical issues to non-technical users, calm handling of angry customers, prioritising a queue, on-call or weekend rotas.

Three or four lines: support line and years, product type and customers, the troubleshooting depth, one or two metrics. A graduate can write a career objective, but it should still lead with something concrete: a certification, a lab, a customer-facing job.

Entry-level support roles are one of the most common doors into IT, and managers expect to train you. What they need to see is that you already troubleshoot on your own, that you can talk to people, and that you will not panic in a queue.

1. 1Get one recognised certificate on the page: CompTIA A+ is the standard, the Google IT Support Professional Certificate is accepted by many employers, and ITIL 4 Foundation helps for enterprise employers. Put it in the personal statement and the certifications section.
2. 2Show troubleshooting you did yourself. Fixing family and friends' machines does not count on its own, but a documented home lab (Windows Server, Active Directory, a Linux VM, a firewall) showing what you configured and broke does.
3. 3Turn any helpdesk, university IT, placement or volunteer tech work into a job entry with a ticket count, even if it was 150 tickets over a term.
4. 4List customer-facing work (retail, call centre, hospitality) in one or two lines with a number: customers per shift, calls per day. Managers hire for patience and clear speech as much as for technical skill.
5. 5Sign up for a free trial of Zendesk or Freshdesk, set up a ticket workflow, and list it under projects. It shows you know what a queue looks like.
6. 6One page. Education near the top with the graduation date, then certifications, projects and labs, then work.

No certification is legally required for this job, but a few carry real weight with support managers and applicant tracking systems. List only ones you have passed, with the year; for one in progress, write the scheduled exam month.

• CompTIA A+, Network+ and Security+: the standard trio for IT and technical support. A+ for entry level, Network+ once you handle connectivity issues, Security+ if you support security products. For UK government and defence suppliers, security clearance (usually SC) often matters more than any certificate.
• ITIL 4 Foundation: shows you know incident, problem and change management vocabulary. Common in UK enterprise and managed service provider job adverts.
• Vendor certifications matching what you support: Microsoft (AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals, MD-102 Endpoint Administrator, MS-900), Cisco CCNA for networking products, AWS Cloud Practitioner for cloud platforms, Salesforce Administrator for Salesforce support roles, Zendesk Support Administrator if you run the ticketing tool.
• SDI (Service Desk Institute) certifications such as Service Desk Analyst: less common, but recognised in larger UK support organisations.
• Google IT Support Professional Certificate: accepted as an entry-level credential by many employers; list it as a certificate, not a degree.

• One page early in your career; two pages are normal in the UK once you have several years, and for senior and 3rd line roles with many products.
• Order: contact line, 3 to 4 line personal statement, skills grouped by category, experience with 4 to 5 bullets each, certifications, education. Graduates move education and certifications above experience.
• Single column, standard font, no icons or skill bars, saved as a text-based PDF. Most software companies use Greenhouse, Lever or Workday, which parse before a person reads.
• Mirror the job advert's exact words once each: '2nd line' or 'tier 2' (SaaS firms use both), 'escalation', 'SLA', 'CSAT', 'root cause analysis', 'REST API', 'SSO', 'SQL', 'Zendesk' (or whatever tool they name), 'knowledge base', 'on-call' if it applies.
• Use the title the job advert uses. 'Technical support engineer', 'customer support engineer', 'product support engineer', 'IT support engineer' and 'support specialist' are close cousins and recruiters search by the exact phrase.
• No photo, no date of birth, no marital status, and town or city only rather than a full address.

Paste the job advert and your CV into the cvplex ATS checker before you apply. It lists the tool and protocol names from the job advert that your CV is missing and flags bullets without a number.