Performance Test Engineer

Position Description:

We are looking for a Performance Test Engineer who will be responsible for designing, executing, and analyzing performance tests to ensure that our software applications meet the highest standards of performance and scalability. In this role, you will work closely with developers, quality assurance teams, and product managers to identify performance bottlenecks, ensure optimal performance, and support the delivery of high-quality software solutions for the KPA suite of web and mobile applications.

• Creates, maintains, and execution of performance/load test automation scripts for both web and mobile applications to ensure applications meet acceptance criteria and the business objectives.
• Responsible for analyzing results and providing actionable insights to improve systems stability and efficiency.
• Work with the development and product teams to fix problems, find the root cause of product defects, and take corrective actions for performance issues throughout development, testing, and operations.
• Leads efforts to improve performance testing and tools to catch potential issues early.
• Serves as an expert on software performance metrics and methods, working with cross-functional teams to ensure alignment.
• Writes scripts to perform load and performance testing using K6 or other performance automation tools.
• Participating in daily stand-up scrum calls, grooming, sprint planning and retro meetings
• Review requirements, specifications, and technical documents to give feedback, estimate impacts and risks, and provide test effort estimates to meet project deadlines.
• Conduct manual tests to verify requirements, identify defects, and retest, including Smoke, Sanity, Functional, Performance/Load, Integration, Regression, and post-implementation tests for continuous delivery.
• Mentors other QA team members on performance testing, sharing expertise and providing guidance to enhance their skills and knowledge.

In the first 2 weeks, you will:

• Successfully complete the onboarding process, including any initial training sessions and company orientation.
• Receive a demo of all software products.
• Install necessary tools and review the current performance automation framework.

In the first 30 days, you will:

• Understand all software products' features and workflows to design and execute performance tests effectively.
• Automate performance testing for at least one medium-complexity requirement using the Grafana k6 tool.
• Assess the current performance and load testing tool, reporting on its pros and cons, including functionality, ease of use, scalability, and integration.
• Participate in all QA testing activities within the Scrum team, including writing test cases, verifying bugs, and performing functional and regression testing.

In the first 60 days, you will:

• Work with the QA Manager to plan the performance testing automation rollout for all KPA applications.
• Develop and establish performance policies and procedures to ensure application efficiency and reliability.
• Research and evaluate performance testing tools based on ease of use, integration, and community support.
• Select or develop a performance testing framework that integrates with the CI/CD pipeline
• Create clear and actionable biweekly/monthly performance reports for stakeholders.

In the first 6 months, you will:

• Stay updated with industry best practices and trends in performance testing and automation.
• Review the current UI and API automation setup and understand key features.
• Identify and propose improvements for the performance testing framework.
• Understanding the database structure and how to pull the data needed from different tables.

By the end of the first year, you will have:

• Achieve the performance goals set during initial meetings.
• Mastered tools and processes for performance testing, contribute to UI and API test automations, and show continuous improvement.
• Demonstrate consistent performance and contribute to the overall success of the team and projects

Qualifications:

• 5+ years of Quality Assurance experience
• 3+ years of hands-on performance test automation for web and mobile apps, including building frameworks with open-source tools and writing/editing testing scripts.
• Experience in integrating performance tests into CI/CD pipelines for continuous validation.
• Experience with Java, JavaScript, C#, or similar languages and basic knowledge of XML
• SQL DB knowledge and working experience (Postgres, SQL Server, Mongo DB)
• Proficiency with tools like JMeter, LoadRunner, Dynatrace or K6, including creating test scripts, executing performance tests, and analyzing results.
• Experience in monitoring performance metrics to identify and fix bottlenecks, diagnose issues, recommend optimizations, and collaborate with teams to improve system performance
• Experienced with any bug tracking tools like Jira or Azure DevOps
• Experience testing API layers, micro-services and applications utilizing web services.
• Experience working with Product Managers to ensure requirements are represented in test plans.
• BS or MS degree in Computer Science/Computer Information Systems or equivalent working experience
• Experience in automation testing using Selenium Webdriver, Behave, Cucumber, Specflow, and/or Rest Assured is a plus

Success Criteria:

• Demonstrates objectivity, openness to feedback, and supports team success while building morale and commitment.
• Successfully implements performance testing automation to boost productivity and improve quality.
• Promotes teamwork and a collaborative environment.
• Possesses good communication skills, both oral and written
• Works well in a team environment as well as independently.
• Exhibits good time management skills, independent decision-making capability
• Ability to be on call during assigned nights and weekends.
• A commitment to KPA’s core values: Integrity, Helpfulness, Excellence, Agility, Respect, and Teamwork.

Compensation:

• Annual base salary between $90-110k
• Bonus potential of 10% annually
• This is a full-time, exempt position