Senior Performance Test Engineer

Every minute of every day, Smiths Detection's threat detection and security screening technology helps to protect people and infrastructure, making the world a safer place.

Smiths Detection is a global leader in the development, manufacture and management of security and detection solutions designed to make the world a safer place. Our technology provides threat detection and screening solutions for customers in our key markets: aviation, ports and borders, defence, and urban security.

Our expertise spans 21 global offices, seven manufacturing sites and five R&D centres, with a global network of 3,000 dedicated colleagues contributing towards over 40 years at the frontline of advances in safety and security.

This results in careers built on variety and the opportunity to work on a range of state-of-the-art solutions, where you can develop your knowledge and experience every day.

Duties:

• Design and develop detailed performance test strategies, plans, scenarios, and scripts to evaluate system behavior under various load conditions, ensuring applications meet defined performance, scalability, and reliability benchmarks.
• Develop comprehensive performance testing protocols, including load, stress, spike, endurance, and scalability testing. Assess system behavior across all layers-application, API, database, network, and infrastructure-to ensure optimal performance and resource utilization.
• Identify, analyze, and diagnose performance bottlenecks such as slow response times, memory leaks, CPU spikes, thread contention, and database query inefficiencies. Collaborate with development and DevOps teams to recommend and validate performance improvements.
• Monitor and analyze performance metrics, logs, and system behavior using appropriate monitoring and profiling tools. Maintain detailed reports of findings, tuning efforts, and performance benchmarks to ensure traceability and continuous improvement.
• Create and maintain comprehensive documentation of performance test scenarios, workload models, test results, tuning recommendations, and baseline metrics to support knowledge sharing and compliance standards.
• Work closely with cross-functional teams-including architects, developers, DevOps, and product owners-to ensure performance requirements are defined early and validated throughout the development lifecycle.
• Provide actionable feedback and optimization recommendations, evaluating system architecture, database interactions, caching mechanisms, and infrastructure configurations to improve overall system efficiency.
• Implement, enhance, and maintain performance automation frameworks and CI/CD integrations to enable continuous performance testing and early detection of performance regressions.

Skills and Experience:

• Strong experience in performance testing of web applications, APIs, and distributed systems, with expertise in designing end-to-end performance test strategies.
• Hands-on experience with performance testing tools such as JMeter, LoadRunner, Gatling, k6, or similar tools.
• Good hands on experience on Containerization and Orchestration tools like Docker and Kubernetes.
• Solid understanding of performance engineering concepts including load, stress, spike, endurance, scalability, and capacity testing.
• Strong knowledge of system architecture, including microservices, REST APIs, caching mechanisms, message queues, and distributed systems.
• Deep understanding of database performance tuning (SQL/NoSQL), query optimization, indexing strategies, and identifying database bottlenecks.
• Experience monitoring and analyzing performance metrics using tools such as Grafana, Prometheus, ELK, Dynatrace, AppDynamics, or similar APM tools.
• Good understanding of Linux systems, including system-level metrics (CPU, memory, disk I/O, network) and troubleshooting performance issues at OS level.
• Hands-on experience with Docker and Kubernetes, including performance validation in containerized and cloud-native environments.
• Experience integrating performance testing into CI/CD pipelines to enable continuous performance validation.
• Strong scripting/programming skills (Python, Java, or similar) for test automation and performance framework customization.
• Ability to analyze complex performance issues, provide data-driven insights, and recommend architectural improvements.
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills, with experience working closely with cross-functional teams in a product-based organization.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field, with substantial experience in performance testing and engineering.

Professional Competencies

• Self-driven, detail-oriented professional with strong ownership and time-management capabilities.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Proven ability to collaborate, influence, and build consensus across cross-functional and geographically distributed teams.
• Experience working effectively in matrixed, multicultural, and global environments.
• Adaptability and openness to change, with a proactive approach to innovation and process enhancement.

We offer...

Join us and we'll help build your career, with excellent training and opportunities for career growth across the business, both locally and globally. You'll experience an inclusive environment, with strong leadership and a focus on safety and wellbeing. You'll also have the flexibility to choose from a wide range of benefits to suit your lifestyle, offering you and your family support from a health and wellbeing, financial and lifestyle perspective.

Join us and work for a world-leader, with the benefits and training to reward your dedication and skills. Be part of a team where we are making the world a safer place.

We believe that different perspectives and backgrounds are what make a company flourish. All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment regardless of color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, economic status, disability, age, or any other legally protected characteristics. We are proud to be an inclusive company with values grounded in equality and ethics, where we celebrate, support, and embrace diversity.

At no time during the hiring process will Smiths Group, nor any of our recruitment partners ever request payment to enable participation - including, but not limited to, interviews or testing. Avoid fraudulent requests by applying jobs directly through our career's website (Careers - Smiths Group plc)