Why Nickel Photo?
Nickel uses a serif font (Lora) and an inline pipe-separated contact bar, which gives it a more polished, editorial feel than most tech resume templates. Adding a photo to this layout leans into that polish. The result reads less like a standard developer resume and more like a professional profile, which is exactly the point if you are in a role that blends technical skills with client interaction.
The photo sits in the header alongside the contact bar, and because Nickel already keeps the header compact, the addition does not eat into your content space.
When a photo makes sense
Engineering management, technical sales, solutions architecture, and developer relations. Roles where you are the face of a technical team and need to project competence and approachability at the same time. Also useful for conference speakers, open source maintainers with a public profile, or anyone whose LinkedIn photo is already part of their professional brand.
If you are applying to European companies or agencies in the Middle East, this variant saves you from retrofitting a photo into a template that was not designed for one.
When to skip the photo
For anonymous hiring pipelines, government applications, or US-based corporate roles where photos are discouraged, stick with the base Nickel template.
What you get
- Everything from the base Nickel template: inline contact layout, single-column flow, 9.5/10 ATS score, multi-page support
- A profile photo section built into the header
- Photo on the first page only; subsequent pages continue without it
- 11 colour themes, all tested with headshot placement
- Lora as the default font, changeable to any available font in the builder
Photo tips
Match the tone of Nickel's serif styling. A clean, professional headshot works better here than a casual one. Think business portrait rather than conference selfie. Square crop, face centred, neutral or blurred background.
ATS compatibility
The photo is a separate visual element that parsers ignore. Your text content is identical to the base Nickel template, so both versions score 9.5/10 on ATS compatibility.
Build your resume with Nickel Photo on Laddro
Start building with Nickel Photo. Upload your headshot, fill in your sections, and see the live preview. Change colours, swap fonts, and download as PDF when you are done. No account needed to start.
