Brag Doc Template
Software Engineer Brag Doc
A brag doc for a Software Engineer is the running record of what you shipped, what you fixed, and where your judgment showed up. Most engineers underweight the work that does not appear in a PR title (the design doc review that caught a regression, the on-call save at 2am, the dependency upgrade nobody asked for). The template below makes those visible.
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Software Engineer Brag Doc
What to include
At the IC engineer level, promotion and review cases are built on four things: features shipped with measurable outcomes, code quality contributions that compound across the team, incident response and on-call work that prevented bigger problems, and the collaboration moments that show you understand how the system fits together. Quantify everything you can. If a number is not available, name the project, the user-visible effect, and the timeline.
Personalize
Optional · Appears in downloadThe template
Shipped Features
Production releases you owned or substantially moved forward.
- ·What did you ship that users (internal or external) noticed?
- ·What was the measurable outcome? (latency, error rate, conversion, throughput, time saved)
- ·Who else worked on it and what was your specific contribution?
- ·What surprised you about the work that would have changed your initial estimate?
- (no entries)
Code Quality and Reliability
Investments in the codebase that paid off without being visible features.
- ·What did you refactor, deprecate, or untangle that the next engineer thanked you for?
- ·What test coverage, monitoring, or observability work did you add?
- ·What flaky test or recurring bug did you finally close out for good?
- ·What did you write or update in internal docs that someone else used?
- (no entries)
Incidents and On-Call
Operational work that prevented bigger problems or improved system understanding.
- ·What incidents did you respond to and what was the user impact you prevented?
- ·What post-mortem did you author or contribute substantially to?
- ·What runbook, alert, or rollback procedure did you write or fix?
- ·What did the team learn from the incident that you helped land into process?
- (no entries)
Collaboration and Influence
Cross-team moments that show systems thinking and trust.
- ·What code review feedback did you give that meaningfully changed someone else's design?
- ·What cross-team decision did you push for that was not initially obvious?
- ·What did you onboard, mentor, or unblock someone on this period?
- ·What design doc did you author or substantially shape?
- (no entries)
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Generated via Bloom, a career journal for iPhone. Bloom writes this document for you from your daily entries; the template is the manual version. Bloomjournal.cc
Weak vs. Strong bullets
The format does the easy part. The bullets carry the weight. A few examples to set the bar.
Weak
Improved API performance.
Strong
Reduced p99 latency on POST /transaction from 340ms to 89ms (45% improvement) by replacing N+1 queries with a batched fetch. Saved $4.2K/mo in compute and unlocked 12K additional RPS headroom for the holiday traffic forecast.
Weak
Fixed flaky tests.
Strong
Closed out the 7 flakiest tests in the checkout suite (collectively responsible for 38% of CI reruns last quarter). Median CI time dropped from 14min to 9min. Cut team daily deploy friction by ~45 minutes across 8 engineers.
Weak
On-call work.
Strong
Responded to 11 pages over 2 on-call rotations; 9 were resolved within SLA. Authored post-mortem for the May 14 cache-stampede incident; the cooldown logic I added became a pattern adopted by 3 other services.
Weak
Mentored a new hire.
Strong
Onboarded Sarah through her first 3 features over 8 weeks. She shipped her first solo PR in week 3, owned her first user-facing release in week 6. My pairing notes were adopted as the team's onboarding doc.
Manual template vs. Bloom generated report
Manual brag doc
- Works when you already remember the right examples.
- Requires manual sorting, rewriting, and evidence cleanup.
- Best for a one-time draft or printable structure.
Bloom generated report
- Starts from the work you captured when it happened.
- Organizes entries by goals, skills, impact, and review period.
- Turns daily evidence into shareable summaries and PDF reports.
You don't fill out a Bloom report. Bloom writes it.
The template above is the manual version. Bloom is the generated version. Thirty seconds when something good happens (speak it or type it) and at review time the entire document is in your share sheet. Same shape as the template. Your numbers, your names, your dates. Already written.
Get Bloom for iPhoneFree to start · iPhone · iOS 17+
Build the evidence before you need the template
Templates help with format. A career journal helps with memory. Use these pages together: learn the structure, generate a quick outline, then keep the source material current in Bloom.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use this as a Software Engineer brag doc app replacement?▾
You can use the template manually, but it will only stay useful if you update it consistently. Bloom is the app version: capture wins daily, then generate reports when you need them.
What should a brag doc include?▾
A strong brag doc includes dated wins, measurable impact, collaborators, skills, feedback, decisions, evidence links, and review-category alignment.
Is Bloom a brag doc app?▾
Yes. Bloom is a brag doc app and career journal that keeps the source material current, then turns entries into performance reports, recaps, and reusable career stories.