Senior Performance Engineer

Boston College • Newton, MA

20h • $110,150 - $137,700 • Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Performance Engineer spearheads the strategy for application scalability, capacity planning, and resilience. They will lead end-to-end performance initiatives, working across functional boundaries to ensure our systems are robust, responsive, and reliable. From developing sophisticated simulation scripts to performing deep-dive root cause analysis on production-level bottlenecks, they will be the primary advocate for a seamless user experience.

Requirements

• Education: Bachelor’s or Graduate degree in Computer Science, or a related technical field.
• Experience: 6+ years of dedicated IT Performance Engineering/Testing experience.
• Languages: Proficiency in Java, Python, or JavaScript.
• Web Tech: Strong understanding of contemporary web architectures (Angular, CSS, XML, HTML5).
• Data: Deep experience with relational databases (Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL) and query optimization.
• Infrastructure: Experience automating testbeds on-prem and in Cloud environments (AWS/Azure/GCP).
• Orchestration: Familiarity with containerization (Docker/Kubernetes)
• Performance Test Tools: Strong background in load testing tools to script complex workloads. Grafana K6 scripting and experience is highly preferred.
• Soft Skills: Exceptional ability to communicate complex technical findings to non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Performance Strategy & Frameworks: Lead the authoring and iteration of automated performance scripts and CI/CD integrations. Will own the instrumentation and telemetry strategy to ensure high-fidelity data capture.
• Shift-Left Engineering: Partner with developers and analysts from day one of the SDLC. Ensure performance requirements aren't an afterthought but are documented and baked into the initial architecture.
• Proactive Monitoring & SRE Alignment: Anticipate and mitigate issues before they impact the user. Will leverage APM tools and profilers to maintain a pulse on system health and drive the resolution of complex concurrency and scalability bottlenecks.
• SRE Collaboration: Partner with Technical Services to establish SLOs and Error Budgets, balancing the need for rapid feature velocity with rock-solid system reliability.
• Self-Service Enablement: Design and build continuous performance testing capabilities that allow developers to execute tests in a self-service capacity within their own pipelines.
• Workload Modeling: Construct sophisticated workload models and simulations that accurately mimic real-world traffic to establish scalability benchmarks.
• Architectural Scrutiny: Participate in design reviews to identify performance risks in system integrations, database schemas, and application logic.
• Mentorship & Code Review: Lead code reviews for performance scripts and artifacts, ensuring the team adheres to industry best practices and maintains high-quality test suites.
• Deep-Dive Analysis: Utilize advanced profiling tools (e.g., Oracle Flight Recorder, JProfiler) to identify memory leaks, thread contention, and I/O bottlenecks.

Benefits

• Tuition remission for Employees
• Tuition remission for Spouses and Children who meet eligibility requirements
• Generous Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
• Low-Cost Life Insurance
• Eligibility for both University-Funded 401k and Employer-Sponsored 403b Retirement Plans
• Paid Holidays Annually
• Generous Sick and Vacation Pay

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior