Senior Performance Engineer – Loadrunner, Dynatrace, JMeter
M&T Bank · Buffalo · $116,400–$194,000 (stated in the posting)
This role is four days onsite, with the flexibility to work from home one day per week M&T Work Model - 4 Days In-Office | 1 Day Work From Home
The Bank sponsors individuals for TN and H-1B transfers on a case by case basis. Please note that this position is not open to anyone on an F-1 student visa including those eligible for CPT/OPT or the Stem OPT extension.
Overview:
The Senior Performance Engineer serves as a senior technical contributor and domain specialist responsible for defining, engineering, and leading enterprise performance testing solutions that validate the scalability, reliability, resiliency, and production readiness of complex applications, services, and platforms. This role provides technical leadership across multiple initiatives, identifies systemic performance risk, establishes reusable standards and frameworks, and delivers data-driven recommendations that influence architecture, capacity, and release decisions. The role partners with application teams, architects, infrastructure, database, middleware, cloud, cybersecurity, vendors, and business stakeholders while mentoring engineers and advancing shift-left performance engineering practices.
Primary Responsibilities:
- Lead performance engineering strategy, planning, execution, analysis, and reporting for complex, high-risk, or enterprise-scale initiatives across the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC)
- Design and implement performance test strategies, workload models, test frameworks, and validation approaches for web, API, mobile, cloud, containerized, and distributed applications
- Engineer and maintain advanced performance test assets using OpenText Core Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Cloud), LoadRunner Professional/VuGen, JMeter, BlazeMeter, and related tooling
- Develop robust automated performance test scripts in C and other applicable languages, including correlation, parameterization, reusable functions, error handling, data management, and validation logic
- Lead load, stress, endurance, volume, scalability, resiliency, failover, and capacity testing to evaluate application behavior under realistic and peak business demand
- Use Dynatrace and other observability tools to correlate application, infrastructure, database, network, and user-experience metrics; identify bottlenecks and guide root-cause analysis
- Review application architectures, technical designs, infrastructure changes, migration plans, release scope, and nonfunctional requirements to identify performance risk and recommend mitigation before implementation
- Define test objectives, workload assumptions, success criteria, entry and exit criteria, dependencies, constraints, and production-readiness recommendations
- Provide authoritative technical guidance to application teams, architects, infrastructure partners, project leaders, and vendors on performance risk, remediation options, and release decisions
- Create and maintain reusable performance engineering standards, scripting practices, test-plan expectations, analysis methods, reporting templates, readiness criteria, and governance controls
- Advance shift-left performance testing by mentoring Software Engineers and Performance Engineers in JMeter, LoadRunner, test design, scripting, analysis, troubleshooting, and CI/CD integration
- Coordinate technical activities with vendors and platform teams, including OpenText, BlazeMeter, Dynatrace, and application vendors, to resolve complex tooling, testing, and product-performance issues
- Lead troubleshooting of complex production and pre-production performance issues by reproducing workload conditions, analyzing telemetry, and validating corrective actions
- Support enterprise capacity planning by translating business volumes and growth assumptions into workload models, scalability findings, resource considerations, and risk-based recommendations
- Identify opportunities to improve performance engineering efficiency through automation, reusable assets, modern tooling, cloud capabilities, and continuous testing practices
- Communicate complex findings through concise technical reports, executive summaries, risk statements, and presentations tailored to technical and non-technical audiences
- Understand and adhere to company risk, security, compliance, audit, and regulatory requirements
Education and Experience Required:
- Combined minimum of 8 years’ higher education and/or work experience in systems design, management and/or architecture
- Strong understanding of the system development and infrastructure lifecycle and architecture, vendor best practices, IT Service Management, and systems design
- Minimum of 8 years of professional experience in software testing, performance engineering, software engineering, or a related technical engineering discipline
- Minimum of 5 years of hands-on experience developing and executing enterprise performance tests with OpenText Core Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Cloud), LoadRunner Enterprise, or LoadRunner Professional/VuGen
- Advanced experience designing performance test strategies, workload models, success criteria, and test scenarios for complex or distributed systems
- Advanced experience developing and maintaining performance test scripts, including C-based VuGen scripting and JMeter
- Demonstrated experience analyzing application performance and leading investigation of complex bottlenecks using APM and observability data
- Experience providing technical leadership across multiple teams or initiatives and mentoring less-experienced engineers
- Experience working within Agile, DevOps, CI/CD, risk-management, and production-readiness processes
Education and Experience Preferred:
- Experience with BlazeMeter, Azure Load Testing, or other cloud-based performance testing platforms
- Experience with Dynatrace, AppDynamics, New Relic, or comparable Application Performance Monitoring and observability platforms
- Experience testing enterprise-scale digital, mobile, API, event-driven, cloud, containerized, and distributed systems
- Experience with Kubernetes, OpenShift, Azure, AWS, databases, middleware, messaging, and network-related performance analysis
- Financial services or other highly regulated industry experience
- Experience developing performance engineering standards, governance, reusable frameworks, or enterprise testing practices
- Performance testing, cloud, DevOps, software engineering, or industry-recognized technical certifications.
Required Technical Skills:
- OpenText Core Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Cloud) – Advanced
- LoadRunner Professional / VuGen – Advanced
- JMeter – Advanced
- C Programming for Performance Test Automation – Advanced
- Performance Test Strategy, Design, and Workload Modeling
- API, Web, Mobile, Cloud, and Distributed-System Performance Testing
- Performance Analysis, Bottleneck Identification, and Root-Cause Support
- Dynatrace or Equivalent APM / Observability Tools
- Scalability, Capacity, Resiliency, Endurance, and Failover Testing
- SDLC, Agile, DevOps, CI/CD, and Shift-Left Performance Engineering
- AI in QA/Testing
- Technical Risk Assessment, Production Readiness, and Executive Reporting
Preferred Technical Skills:
- BlazeMeter and Azure Load Testing
- GitLab or Comparable CI/CD Pipeline Integration
- Cloud Performance Engineering in Azure or AWS
- Kubernetes and OpenShift Performance Concepts
- Database, Middleware, Messaging, and Network Performance Analysis
- Test Data Strategy and Service Virtualization
- Scripting or automation using Java, JavaScript, Python, Groovy, or comparable languages
Competencies:
- Expert analytical and problem-solving ability with sound technical judgment in ambiguous, high-risk situations
- Ability to lead through influence, establish technical direction, and align multiple teams without direct authority
- Excellent written, oral, interpersonal, and presentation skills for technical teams, project stakeholders, and senior leaders
- Ability to translate complex technical findings into clear business risk, options, and actionable recommendations
- Strong planning, prioritization, and organizational skills across multiple concurrent initiatives
- Ability to mentor engineers, review technical work, and improve team capability through practical guidance and standards
- Continuous learning mindset with a focus on engineering quality, operational stability, automation, and measurable improvement
- Keeps current with emerging performance engineering trends, technologies, tools, and frameworks. Evaluates applicability to the organization and shares knowledge, best practices, and recommendations with the team
#Loadrunner # Dynatrace #JMeter #BlazeMeter #SilkPerformer
We support our team members with generous benefits.
- Competitive compensation
- Health, welfare, and retirement benefits
- 401(k) match at 5%
- Work-life balance and flexible work arrangements
- Banking Officers start with 25 days PTO plus 12 paid holidays
- 40 hours paid volunteer hours per year
- Much more. For details, see: M&T Benefits Overview
M&T Bank is committed to fair, competitive, and market-informed pay for our employees. The pay range for this position is $116,400.00 - $194,000.00 Annual (USD). The successful candidate’s particular combination of knowledge, skills, and experience will inform their specific compensation.