Site Reliability Engineering Technical Leader (Performance Testing)

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  • Location:
    Offsite, Ann Arbor, Michigan, US
  • Alternate Location
    Remote
  • Area of Interest
    Engineer - Software
  • Compensation Range
    138800 USD - 241700 USD
  • Job Type
    Professional
  • Technology Interest
    Security
  • Job Id
    1433469

The application window is expected to close on 4/1/25.

Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received.

Strong preference is for candidates to be located in Austin, TX, Bay Area Metro, Atlanta Metro, Ann Arbor, MI, Boston Metro, Fulton/DC Metro, and Research Triangle Park.


Meet the Team 

Join us in making our services faster, more reliable, and highly scalable! We cultivate a "kinder than necessary" culture where collaboration, curiosity, and continuous learning are at the core of everything we do. As part of the Performance Engineering team, you’ll work across the stack. We collaborate closely with engineering teams to refine service architecture, define performance testing strategies, and provide the tools and insights needed to optimize systems at scale. 

We manage the performance test infrastructure and our in-house load generation tool, enabling teams to run performance tests, benchmark services, and proactively identify potential performance bottlenecks. Partnering with SRE, we stress-test infrastructure, providing actionable recommendations to improve reliability and uptime. 

Our team thrives on fostering a culture of continuous improvement, and we are passionate about helping each other grow. Join us and be part of a team that thrives on collaboration and a passion for innovation! 

Your Impact 

As a Tech Lead on our team, you will be responsible for maintaining and extending our existing in-house load generation tool, identifying performance bottlenecks, and consulting with engineering teams on optimization efforts. These optimizations could involve the data layer, infrastructure, or other areas where performance can be improved. You will also play a key role in reviewing service architecture and recommending performance testing strategies to ensure we can effectively benchmark and load test services before they are released to our customers. Additionally, as a leader, you’ll help drive innovation and expand our practices to ensure reliability, including exploring new approaches like chaos testing. Your leadership will be crucial in making our services more scalable, and resilient. 

Key Responsibilities:

  • Lead Performance Engineering Initiatives: Advocate for performance testing best practices across the organization and drive impactful performance improvements in our software systems. 
  • Optimize Test Infrastructure: Manage and enhance our Kubernetes and AWS-based test environment to ensure scalability, reliability, and performance under heavy loads. 
  • Framework Development & Automation: Maintain and extend the functionality of our Python-based performance framework
  • Performance Test Planning & Execution: Collaborate with engineering teams to create performance test plans and implement tests, making recommendations based on results to improve system performance. 
  • Benchmarking & Troubleshooting: Lead performance baselining for new and existing services, identify bottlenecks, and provide actionable recommendations for optimization. 
  • Collaboration with SRE & Engineering Teams: Work closely with site reliability and engineering teams to understand system architecture and align performance testing efforts with their needs. 
  • Tooling & Observability: Use observability tools such as DataDog, Grafana, and OpenSearch to collect and analyze performance data, identify issues, and guide optimizations. 
  • Performance Metrics & Reporting: Define and publish metrics to measure product performance, and ensure these insights are easily consumable by engineers and stakeholders. 

Minimum Qualifications:

  • 8 + years of experience in software engineering, performance engineering, or software development in test (SDT). 
  • 3 + years of experience in SRE, operations, or infrastructure-focused engineering. 
  • Experience with cloud technologies and managing Kubernetes (K8s) applications. 
  • Experience with Python or other similar programming languages. 
  • Bachelor's degree in computer science or a related field. 

Preferred Qualifications:

  • Performance Testing Tools:  Experience with Locust, JMeter, or similar load testing tools. 
  • Distributed Systems & Tracing: Strong understanding of distributed architectures and tracing tools like Jaeger for performance analysis. 
  • Database & Cache Optimization: Expertise in MySQL, Redis, Kafka, and NoSQL performance tuning. 
  • Observability & Monitoring: Proficiency with performance monitoring and observability tools such as AppDynamics, Splunk, DataDog, and OpenSearch. 
  • Linux Performance Tuning: Deep knowledge of Linux internals, with strong skills in diagnosing and resolving performance issues in distributed systems. 
  • Advanced Performance Analysis: Experience leveraging eBPF, CPU profiling, memory tuning, and other system-level diagnostics.  

#WeAreCisco  

#WeAreCisco where every individual brings their unique skills and perspectives together to pursue our purpose of powering an inclusive future for all. 

Our passion is connection—we celebrate our employees’ diverse set of backgrounds and focus on unlocking potential. Cisconians often experience one company, many careers where learning and development are encouraged and supported at every stage. Our technology, tools, and culture pioneered hybrid work trends, allowing all to not only give their best, but be their best. 

We understand our outstanding opportunity to bring communities together and at the heart of that is our people. One-third of Cisconians collaborate in our 30 employee resource organizations, called Inclusive Communities, to connect, foster belonging, learn to be informed allies, and make a difference. Dedicated paid time off to volunteer—80 hours each year—allows us to give back to causes we are passionate about, and nearly 86% do! 

Our purpose, driven by our people, is what makes us the worldwide leader in technology that powers the internet. Helping our customers reimagine their applications, secure their enterprise, transform their infrastructure, and meet their sustainability goals is what we do best. We ensure that every step we take is a step towards a more inclusive future for all. Take your next step and be you, with us!


Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:

When available, the salary range posted for this position reflects the projected hiring range for new hire, full-time salaries in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including equity or benefits. For non-sales roles the hiring ranges reflect base salary only; employees are also eligible to receive annual bonuses. Hiring ranges for sales positions include base and incentive compensation target. Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location and additional factors, including but not limited to skillset, experience, and relevant education, certifications, or training. Applicants may not be eligible for the full salary range based on their U.S. or Canada hiring location. The recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.

U.S. employees have access to quality medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, short and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance and numerous wellbeing offerings.

Employees receive up to twelve paid holidays per calendar year, which includes one floating holiday (for non-exempt employees), plus a day off for their birthday. Non-Exempt new hires accrue up to 16 days of vacation time off each year, at a rate of 4.92 hours per pay period. Exempt new hires participate in Cisco’s flexible Vacation Time Off policy, which does not place a defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use, but is subject to availability and some business limitations. All new hires are eligible for Sick Time Off subject to Cisco’s Sick Time Off Policy and will have eighty (80) hours of sick time off provided on their hire date and on January 1st of each year thereafter.  Up to 80 hours of unused sick time will be carried forward from one calendar year to the next such that the maximum number of sick time hours an employee may have available is 160 hours. Employees in Illinois have a unique time off program designed specifically with local requirements in mind. All employees also have access to paid time away to deal with critical or emergency issues. We offer additional paid time to volunteer and give back to the community.

Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components. For quota-based incentive pay, Cisco typically pays as follows:

.75% of incentive target for each 1% of revenue attainment up to 50% of quota;

1.5% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 50% and 75%;

1% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 75% and 100%; and once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no cap on incentive compensation.

For non-quota-based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.

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