How to Write a Resume for Notion
Notion is building the all-in-one workspace used by millions of teams, and it hires against an explicit craft-and-values bar — if you clear one but not the other, they pass, and CEO Ivan Zhao is in almost every hiring loop. Its stated values are 'drivers of our mission, pace setters, truth seekers, and kind and direct,' in service of a single mission: to make it possible for everyone to shape the tools that shape their lives. Compensation is strong (Levels.fyi: ~$346K at L3, ~$523K at L4). This guide draws on Levels.fyi, Notion's own careers and engineering writing, and Ivan Zhao's interviews to show what actually clears the bar.
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John Doe
Summary
Senior Software Engineer with 6+ years building tools that help people shape their work — block-based editors, collaboration tools, and knowledge management systems. Deep focus on editor-core system design, data modeling, and cross-functional product development at scale. Known for craft-first engineering, simplicity in interfaces, and pairing strong user experience instincts with the scalability that power-users demand.
Experience
- Architected the block-based editor core from first principles, supporting 22 content types with nested hierarchies and offline edits, serving 340K daily active users at sub-40ms keystroke latency
- Led data modeling redesign that introduced composable relational views across workspaces, improving query performance by 3.1x and unlocking a launch adopted by 54% of paid teams within 90 days
- Partnered cross-functional with 3 designers and a PM on a knowledge management AI surface, shipping inline Q&A in 6 weeks and reducing average time-to-answer from 38s to 9s across 8M indexed docs
- Drove scalability work on the sync service, cutting p99 edit-propagation latency from 420ms to 95ms and absorbing a 4.2x traffic spike without incident during a product launch week
- Rebuilt the collaboration tools layer on top of CRDTs and WebSocket fan-out, supporting 40 concurrent editors per document with zero data loss across 99.97% of sessions over 90 days
- Designed a flexible schema engine for user-defined databases with 10 field types and filterable views, adopted by 72% of active workspaces in the first two months post-launch
- Shaped the craft bar on the editor team by writing the product quality rubric used in code review, reducing shipped UI regressions by 48% across a cross-functional team of 9 engineers and designers
- Improved initial workspace load time from 3.6s to 1.1s via incremental hydration and simplicity-driven bundle cuts, lifting week-1 activation of new signups by 14% across 80K monthly cohorts
- Built a knowledge management backend in TypeScript and PostgreSQL serving 120K users, modeling documents, links, and tags in a graph that powered a sub-200ms search experience at p95
- Designed a cross-functional product development process with PM and design that shipped 11 experiments in 6 months, 4 of which became permanent features with 25%+ engagement lifts
- Owned system design for the import pipeline ingesting Markdown, HTML, and CSV, reducing average import time for 10K-note workspaces from 14 minutes to 95 seconds
- Introduced a user-experience telemetry layer capturing interaction patterns across 60 features, enabling the team to retire 3 low-value surfaces and focus craft investment on the top 10
Projects
- Authored an open-source block editor toolkit with pluggable schemas and offline support, earning 3.6K GitHub stars and 2.4K weekly npm downloads across 180+ dependent projects
- Shipped a minimal plugin API guided by a simplicity-first design review, enabling 40 community extensions while keeping the core bundle under 42KB gzipped
- Built a personal knowledge management tool with semantic search over 15K notes using pgvector, serving 800 beta users at sub-120ms query latency on a single small instance
- Designed the data modeling around bidirectional links and nested blocks, letting users compose custom workflows without code across 60 real user-submitted templates
Education
Certifications
Technical Skills
What Should You Know About Notion Before Applying?
Headquarters
San Francisco, CA
Industry
Productivity, Knowledge Management, SaaS
Hiring Bar
Notion applies an explicit craft + values filter: it hires people who take their craft seriously and clears them against the four values, and if a candidate doesn't meet both bars they pass — even when otherwise qualified. Engineering rounds emphasize clean, thoughtful solutions over brute force; product roles use case studies that demand first-principles reasoning. CEO Ivan Zhao is personally involved in almost every hiring loop, probing whether you excel at your craft and share the values. Because the team is intentionally small, every hire is expected to be a significant multiplier.
Culture & Values
Notion is deeply mission-driven around the belief that everyone should be able to shape the tools that shape their lives. The team is small relative to its scale and holds an obsessive craft bar — every interaction, from a button animation to an API response, is expected to be excellent. Its four stated values are 'we are drivers of our mission, we are pace setters, we are truth seekers, and we are kind and direct.' Ivan Zhao's product philosophy runs through the culture: make the common path ('the dumbest path') great, think system-first when adding capability, and treat every decision as a tradeoff. The company runs with low bureaucracy and high individual ownership.
What Is It Like to Work at Notion?
Beyond the interview loop, here's what the day-to-day looks like — and how compensation and scope grow from entry to staff-plus levels.
A Day in the Life
Engineering at Notion is small-team and craft-obsessed. Everything in the product is a block, and each block is a row in the database — a single design decision that gives Notion its flexibility and its hardest scaling problems. Engineers own features end-to-end with high individual leverage; because the team is intentionally small, a single person's work multiplies across the product. CEO Ivan Zhao is in almost every hiring loop and reviews for craft, so the internal bar is set by the founder. The day-to-day mixes product craft with real infrastructure at scale. Notion has publicly documented sharding its Postgres monolith into 480 logical shards across 32 physical databases (using dark reads to migrate safely) and then re-sharding again with zero downtime as usage grew. First-principles reasoning is the norm — Zhao's guidance to 'make the dumbest path great' and to 'think system-first' when adding a new block type shapes how features are scoped. Notion AI (LLM features, Q&A over workspace content) is a core roadmap area. Throughout, the instinct is depth over breadth: fewer things, done with taste.
Career Progression
How scope, expectations, and deliverables shift across seniority levels.
Entry (L1–L2): ships well-scoped work and learns the block model and Notion's craft standards. Levels.fyi US range starts around $196K at the low end.
L3: owns features end-to-end and contributes to product and technical decisions. Levels.fyi US median: ~$346K.
L4: leads projects, owns cross-team quality, and mentors on craft. Levels.fyi US median: ~$523K (SF Bay Area runs higher).
L5+: sets technical direction with org-level leverage on a small team. Levels.fyi US median: ~$910K, though on a small sample — treat as indicative.
What Does Notion Look For in a Resume?
Understanding Notion's hiring priorities helps you tailor your resume effectively. Focus on these key areas to align with what their recruiters and hiring managers value most.
Key Principles
Craft quality — evidence that you hold yourself to an exceptionally high bar, visible in the writing itself
First-principles thinking (a 'truth seeker'): novel, reasoned approaches, not just following best practices
Experience building flexible, user-empowering products — block editors, no-code tools, knowledge systems
Resourcefulness and pace — outsized impact with small teams or limited resources
Mission alignment with helping everyone shape the tools that shape their lives
Pro tip: Notion values depth over breadth. Instead of listing many projects superficially, choose 3-4 accomplishments and describe them with the craft and intentionality Notion expects in its own product. Ivan Zhao's advice — 'make the dumbest path great' and 'think system-first' — is a good editing rule for your bullets: show why you made a decision and the tradeoff behind it, not just what you delivered.
What ATS Keywords Should You Use for a Notion Resume?
Notion uses applicant tracking systems to filter candidates. Include these keywords naturally in your resume to pass automated screening and reach the interview stage.
Must Include
Nice to Have
Pro tip: Notion's recruiters look for product craft and thoughtful engineering. Weave knowledge-management, collaboration, data-modeling, and system-design keywords into your experience naturally. If you've built editor experiences, block-based or flexible data models, or productivity tools, make those prominent. Avoid keyword stuffing — Notion values clarity and intentionality, and a cluttered resume works against the craft signal.
Rolevanta's AI tailors your resume to match Notion's hiring criteria.
Try FreeHow Should You Write Bullet Points for a Notion Resume?
Tailor your bullet points to reflect Notion's values and priorities. Use specific metrics and outcomes that align with what the company looks for in candidates:
Weak
Built a document editor for the product.
Strong
Designed and implemented a block-based document editor supporting 15 content types with drag-and-drop reordering, nested hierarchies, and real-time sync, serving 200K daily active users at sub-50ms input latency.
This maps directly to Notion's core domain — everything is a block. The specificity about content types, interaction patterns, and performance demonstrates the craft quality Notion screens for, and shows you understand what makes editor experiences feel great.
Weak
Worked on database features for the platform.
Strong
Architected a flexible relational data model where each record was a first-class block, enabling users to build custom databases with 8 field types, filtered views, and cross-database relations — adopted by 68% of workspace teams within 2 months, and later horizontally sharded to sustain 4x growth.
This reflects Notion's philosophy of empowering users to build their own tools, and nods to the real engineering reality (block-as-row, sharded Postgres) that Notion has written about publicly. The adoption metric proves usefulness; the sharding note shows production-scale awareness.
Weak
Improved the search feature to help users find content.
Strong
Rebuilt full-text search from first principles, replacing keyword matching with semantic search over vector embeddings, improving result relevance by 45% and cutting average time-to-find from 34s to 11s across 12M indexed documents.
This shows the 'truth seeker' instinct — rethinking the approach rather than incrementally optimizing. The user-centric metric (time-to-find) proves you measure success by user outcomes, and the 12M-document scale shows production-grade thinking.
Weak
Helped reduce page load times.
Strong
Led a 2-engineer performance sprint that cut workspace load time from 3.8s to 1.2s via incremental hydration and lazy-loading of below-fold blocks, lifting new-user retention by 15%.
This demonstrates pace and resourcefulness — significant impact with a tiny team. Tying performance to retention shows product thinking, not just engineering optimization, and the specific techniques show real depth.
What Insiders and Leaders Say About Notion
Published perspectives from Notion leaders, engineers, and hiring insiders — cited and linkable to their original sources.
“Designers spend too much time on edge cases. Most of the time, what matters is the dumbest path. Make that great.”
Ivan Zhao
Co-founder and CEO of Notion
“When you add a new LEGO brick, it might pollute the whole thing. So you have to think system-first.”
Ivan Zhao
Co-founder and CEO of Notion
“Starting a business, solving a design problem, or a technical problem…they're all the same. You're making tradeoffs.”
Ivan Zhao
Co-founder and CEO of Notion
What Gets Candidates Rejected at Notion?
Recurring patterns that sink otherwise-strong applications — and how to frame your resume so you signal you've avoided them.
Breadth over depth
Notion's craft bar rewards depth, and it passes on candidates who don't clear it. A resume of 15 shallow bullets contradicts Ivan Zhao's 'make the dumbest path great.' Curate 4-6 deep, high-craft accomplishments and give each room to show reasoning.
What without why
Notion screens for 'truth seekers.' Bullets that state what you built with no reasoning or tradeoff miss the signal. Zhao frames every decision as 'making tradeoffs' — surface the tradeoff you made and the user problem that drove it.
No craft evidence for a craft-gated hire
Notion applies an explicit craft + values bar and passes on candidates who clear one but not the other. Polish, taste, and specific detail must be visible in the resume itself — a cluttered or vague resume reads as not meeting the bar.
Ignoring the block/data-model reality
For engineering roles, candidates who show no experience with flexible data models, editors, or scaling relational stores miss Notion's actual domain. Notion has publicly written that every block is a row and that it sharded Postgres to survive its growth — align to that reality.
Treating Notion as generic SaaS
Missing the mission ('make it possible for everyone to shape the tools that shape their lives') and the small-team, high-leverage reality reads as not having engaged with what makes Notion distinct. Show mission alignment and multiplier-level impact.
What Resume Mistakes Should You Avoid When Applying to Notion?
Notion receives thousands of applications. These common mistakes can get your resume rejected before a recruiter ever reads it. Here's what to avoid and what to do instead.
1Prioritizing quantity of experience over depth and craft
Notion's team is small and intentional — it hires people who go deep, not wide, and passes on candidates who don't clear the craft bar. A resume listing 15 shallow bullets is less compelling than 6 detailed ones that show genuine craft, thoughtful decisions, and first-principles reasoning. As Ivan Zhao puts it, make the common path great rather than sprawling across edge cases.
2Describing what you built without the why or the tradeoff
Notion screens for 'truth seekers.' A bullet that says 'Built a notification system' tells them nothing about your reasoning. Add the tradeoff: what did you consider, why did you choose this approach, what user problem drove it? Ivan Zhao frames every decision — business, design, technical — as 'making tradeoffs,' and that reasoning is what separates Notion candidates.
3Ignoring the mission and treating Notion as just another tech company
Notion's mission is to make it possible for everyone to shape the tools that shape their lives. A generic tech resume that could apply anywhere signals you haven't engaged with what makes Notion unique. Reference knowledge management, productivity tools, or empowering non-technical users to show genuine alignment.
4Overcomplicating your resume layout or language
Notion's product philosophy centers on simplicity, and its craft bar shows up in how a resume reads. Clean structure, concise language, and no unnecessary complexity embody the same values. An overdesigned or wordy resume is a subtle signal that you don't share Notion's instinct for making the common path great.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do software engineers make at Notion?
Per Levels.fyi crowdsourced data (2026, United States), median total compensation runs about $346K at L3 (mid), $523K at L4 (senior), and roughly $910K at L5 (staff) — though the L5 figure rests on a small sample, so treat it as indicative. The US range spans ~$196K to ~$776K, and the SF Bay Area median is around $630K. This sits well above the BLS national software-developer median of $133,080, driven largely by equity.
What are Notion's values, and how do they affect hiring?
Notion's four stated values are 'we are drivers of our mission, we are pace setters, we are truth seekers, and we are kind and direct,' all in service of the mission to make it possible for everyone to shape the tools that shape their lives. Notion applies an explicit craft + values bar: if you clear one but not the other, they pass. CEO Ivan Zhao is personally involved in almost every hiring loop, so your resume should evidence both exceptional craft and alignment with those values.
How small is Notion's team, and does that affect hiring?
Notion operates with a small team relative to its user base and valuation, which is why it describes hiring 'pace setters' and expects every hire to be a significant multiplier. Your resume should demonstrate outsized impact — meaningful results achieved with limited resources or on small teams — rather than impact that depended on large organizational support.
What does 'craft quality' mean in practice for my resume?
Craft quality at Notion means obsessing over details others overlook. On your resume, that means specificity: instead of 'improved performance,' write exactly what you improved, by how much, and with what technique. Ivan Zhao's rule — make the common path great — applies to your bullets: pick the accomplishments that matter most and make each one excellent rather than spreading thin.
Do I need experience building productivity or knowledge tools?
It's not required, but it's a strong signal. If you've built editors, wikis, databases, no-code tools, or any product that helps people organize information, highlight it. Notion's own architecture is block-based (each block is a row it has publicly written about sharding at scale), so experience with flexible data models and editor experiences maps especially well. If you lack it, emphasize building flexible systems, empowering end-users, and a high quality bar.
How important is AI experience for Notion roles?
Increasingly important. Notion AI is a core part of the roadmap, powering writing assistance, autofill, and Q&A over workspace content. Experience with LLM integration, semantic search, vector databases, or AI-powered product features is highly relevant for both engineering and product roles — described, as always, with the craft and reasoning Notion expects.
Sources
- Notion Software Engineer Salary — Levels.fyi
- Careers at Notion (mission and values) — Notion
- How Notion hires — Notion Blog
- Herding elephants: lessons learned from sharding Postgres at Notion — Notion Blog (Garrett Fidalgo, Infrastructure Tech Lead)
- The Great Re-shard: adding Postgres capacity (again) with zero downtime — Notion Blog
- OEWS May 2024 — Software Developers (15-1252) — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- The Ivanisms that power Notion — Designer Founders (Ben Blumenrose)
- Inside Notion: Ivan Zhao — Lenny's Newsletter
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