What is a Performance Test Engineer?

Testing and launching a software product requires a lot of testing. A performance test engineer is one of the people on a Quality Analysis, or QA, a team that ensures that a product works perfectly before it is sent out to clients.

Performance test engineers make sure that the product does what it is supposed to do and that it performs its task quickly, effectively, and without crashing. It would be a disaster if after launch the company got angry phone calls from customers because the product doesn't work if too many people use it at once.

A performance test engineer needs to have lots of technical knowledge, including specific software such as Jmeter, and many have bachelor's or master's degrees. A performance test engineer also needs to be creative to develop effective tests that sniff out bugs before they can cause real problems.

What Does a Performance Test Engineer Do

When it comes to the most important skills required to be a performance test engineer, we found that a lot of resumes listed 9.0% of performance test engineers included java, while 7.6% of resumes included test results, and 7.2% of resumes included jmeter. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.

Learn more about what a Performance Test Engineer does

How To Become a Performance Test Engineer

If you're interested in becoming a performance test engineer, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 70.9% of performance test engineers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 22.7% of performance test engineers have master's degrees. Even though most performance test engineers have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.

Learn More About How To Become a Performance Test Engineer
Top Performance Test Engineer Jobs Near You

Performance Test Engineer Career Paths

In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of performance engineer you might progress to a role such as radio frequency engineer eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title delivery manager.

Performance Test Engineer

Average Salary for a Performance Test Engineer

Performance Test Engineers in America make an average salary of $97,965 per year or $47 per hour. The top 10 percent makes over $127,000 per year, while the bottom 10 percent under $75,000 per year.
Average Performance Test Engineer Salary
$97,965 Yearly
$47.10 hourly
See More Salary Information

What Am I Worth?

salary-calculator

Roles and Types of Performance Test Engineer

The role of a performance test engineer includes a wide range of responsibilities. These responsibilities can vary based on an individual's specific job, company, or industry.Here are some general performance test engineer responsibilities:

  • Evaluate non functional requirement documents and identify performance test needs; types of tests, scripting scenarios, volume projections, etc. Coordinate
  • As part of the veterans benefits administration (vba) the qa performance testing engineer is responsible for providing design
  • Participate as part of agile software development team to design, implement, execute

There are several types of performance test engineer, including:

Engineer

Role:

Engineers design and develop new products in a variety of different industries. They might be mechanical or software engineers or create electric machinery, design chemical or geotechnical processes, or help to structure civil or management disciplines. Whatever the case may be, engineers are involved in creating the diverse technologies that facilitate the processes of our lives in different areas. Combining creative thinking with the principles of mathematics and science using a wide range of technical skills, engineers work on the design, manufacturing, installation, and maintenance of various products from machines, vehicles, buildings, and roads to software or social processes serving consumers, businesses, and societies.

Engineers are creative thinkers and brilliant problem solvers. They excel at mathematical, scientific, and mechanical analysis. They follow plans and blueprints with a strong focus, yet remain flexible and work well under pressure.

Engineers develop systems for solving various problems as members of a team. They know that a single component is worthless without their counterparts, so they have to be great communicators, as well, to be successful at their job.

  • Average Salary: $92,077
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree

Quality Assurance Engineer

Role:

Quality assurance engineers test the quality of specifications and design of a product in order to ensure it works properly. Although this career isn't easily attainable, we can guarantee that it's worth every penny and second.

The job requires that you know quite an extensive amount of information in order to fill your role efficiently. That usually means a lot of education. The very least amount of education in this field is generally a bachelor's degree. Though most earn a master's degree.

A lot of your day-to-day will deal with software design, engineering and computer science. So maybe look into one of those degrees. Some quality assurance engineers require a license, in addition to the education. But that usually depends on the state and employer.

  • Average Salary: $82,215
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree

Quality Assurance Tester

Role:

Have you ever experienced a crash in a website, a virus in your software, or an error in your game? These are some of the issues that a quality assurance tester is tasked to prevent, rectify, and manage.

The primary role of a quality assurance tester is in conducting software testing to resolve issues and ensure standards and guidelines are being adhered to. Daily, they are involved in recording defect details, conducting database testing, creating automated test plans, and developing quality assurance reports. Besides that, they also work with developers in designing better software processes.

Employers require quality assurance testers have a degree related to computer science or engineering and have at least one year's worth of work experience. This role earns, on average, $34 per hour and is suitable for individuals who have an aptitude in systems testing.

  • Average Salary: $74,140
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree
View More

States With The Most Performance Test Engineer Jobs

Mouse over a state to see the number of active performance test engineer jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where performance test engineers earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.

Average Salary: Job Openings:

Number Of Performance Test Engineer Jobs By State

RankStateNumber of JobsAverage Salary
1California5,275$115,018
2Texas1,796$92,491
3Virginia1,440$88,468
4Florida1,370$90,297
5Washington1,024$113,726
6New York1,022$93,056
7Massachusetts1,018$102,835
8Colorado882$94,469
9Maryland843$101,561
10Illinois825$92,354
11Pennsylvania729$94,743
12Georgia707$91,530
13North Carolina704$89,708
14Arizona624$89,601
15Ohio615$93,853
16Michigan610$96,670
17New Jersey552$97,480
18Oregon492$104,524
19Minnesota470$94,954
20Utah468$99,154
21Alabama422$93,523
22Indiana410$91,143
23Wisconsin395$88,673
24Missouri323$82,579
25Connecticut312$97,185
26Tennessee230$87,356
27Iowa228$91,567
28South Carolina187$86,772
29Kentucky186$101,284
30Arkansas185$89,728
31Kansas167$90,218
32Nevada164$95,878
33Nebraska160$90,743
34New Hampshire158$107,904
35Louisiana157$87,876
36Oklahoma155$80,996
37New Mexico149$82,313
38Delaware139$105,894
39Idaho118$93,562
40Rhode Island109$91,458
41Mississippi91$89,732
42Vermont88$84,160
43West Virginia85$79,751
44Montana78$94,172
45North Dakota73$90,259
46Maine72$102,428
47South Dakota67$93,386
48Hawaii58$81,739
49Wyoming57$98,597
50Alaska57$98,625

Performance Test Engineer Education

Performance Test Engineer Majors

Computer Science
21.1 %
Electrical Engineering
17.7 %
Mechanical Engineering
9.6 %

Performance Test Engineer Degrees

Bachelors

70.9 %

Masters

22.7 %

Associate

3.6 %

Top Colleges for Performance Test Engineers

1. California State University - Long Beach

Long Beach, CA • Private

In-State Tuition

$6,798

Enrollment

31,503

2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Cambridge, MA • Private

In-State Tuition

$51,832

Enrollment

4,550

3. Stanford University

Stanford, CA • Private

In-State Tuition

$51,354

Enrollment

7,083

4. Purdue University

West Lafayette, IN • Private

In-State Tuition

$9,992

Enrollment

33,495

5. Harvard University

Cambridge, MA • Private

In-State Tuition

$50,420

Enrollment

7,582

6. Duke University

Durham, NC • Private

In-State Tuition

$55,695

Enrollment

6,596

7. California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

Pomona, CA • Private

In-State Tuition

$7,353

Enrollment

24,841

8. University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA • Private

In-State Tuition

$55,584

Enrollment

10,764

9. Minnesota State University - Mankato

Mankato, MN • Private

In-State Tuition

$8,184

Enrollment

11,675

10. Western Carolina University

Cullowhee, NC • Private

In-State Tuition

$3,926

Enrollment

9,835

Top Skills For a Performance Test Engineer

Choose From 10+ Customizable Performance Test Engineer Resume templates

Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Performance Test Engineer templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Performance Test Engineer resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.

Performance Test Engineer Resume
Performance Test Engineer Resume
Performance Test Engineer Resume
Performance Test Engineer Resume
Performance Test Engineer Resume
Performance Test Engineer Resume
Performance Test Engineer Resume
Performance Test Engineer Resume
Performance Test Engineer Resume
Performance Test Engineer Resume
Performance Test Engineer Resume
Performance Test Engineer Resume
Performance Test Engineer Resume
Performance Test Engineer Resume
Performance Test Engineer Resume
Performance Test Engineer Resume

Performance Test Engineer diversity

Performance Test Engineer Gender Distribution

Male
Male
81%
Female
Female
19%

After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:

  • Among performance test engineers, 18.9% of them are women, while 81.1% are men.

  • The most common race/ethnicity among performance test engineers is White, which makes up 67.7% of all performance test engineers.

  • The most common foreign language among performance test engineers is Russian at 18.2%.

Online Courses For Performance Test Engineer That You May Like

Advertising Disclosure  

1. Software Engineering Immersive (Full-time)

general_assembly

Meet the global demand for technical problem-solvers by developing your coding skills to create full-stack web applications across multiple frameworks, incorporating functionality from third-party APIs, executing software engineering projects in an Agile development workflow, and more...

2. Intro to Coding

general_assembly

Discover if coding is a career fit for you In this free, two-hour livestream, explore the building blocks of the web — HTML and CSS — and learn how you can apply these programming languages to develop your own simple sites. All in real time, taught by an industry professional. Come learn the basics and gain the skills you need to write your first line of code!...

3. Software Testing

udacity

When writing software, destruction can be just as valuable as creation. Learn how to catch bugs and break software as you discover different testing methods that will help you build better software...

Show More Online Courses For Performance Test Engineer
Job type you want
Full Time
Part Time
Internship
Temporary

Best States For a Performance Test Engineer

Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a performance test engineer. The best states for people in this position are California, Washington, New Hampshire, and Delaware. Performance test engineers make the most in California with an average salary of $115,018. Whereas in Washington and New Hampshire, they would average $113,726 and $107,904, respectively. While performance test engineers would only make an average of $105,894 in Delaware, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.

1. Washington

Total Performance Test Engineer Jobs: 1,024
Highest 10% Earn:
$149,000
Location Quotient:
1.49

$113,726

Avg. Salary

View 1,024 Performance Test Engineer Jobs In WA

2. New Hampshire

Total Performance Test Engineer Jobs: 158
Highest 10% Earn:
$139,000
Location Quotient:
0.96

$107,904

Avg. Salary

View 158 Performance Test Engineer Jobs In NH

3. California

Total Performance Test Engineer Jobs: 5,275
Highest 10% Earn:
$156,000
Location Quotient:
1.92

$115,018

Avg. Salary

View 5,275 Performance Test Engineer Jobs In CA
Full List Of Best States For Performance Test Engineers

How Do Performance Test Engineers Rate Their Jobs?

Working as a Performance Test Engineer? Share your experience anonymously.
Overall Rating*
Career Growth
Work/Life balance
Pay/Salary

Top Performance Test Engineer Employers

Most Common Employers For Performance Test Engineer

RankCompanyAverage SalaryHourly RateJob Openings
1Microsoft$126,920$61.0213
2Citi$123,911$59.578
3JPMorgan Chase & Co.$122,918$59.109
4Target$114,459$55.0312
5AT&T$108,883$52.3515
6Populus Group$98,594$47.409
7Ultimate Software$97,033$46.6512
8Amdocs$95,559$45.9410
9CCC Intelligent Solutions$93,937$45.169
10Bank of America$91,826$44.159
Show More

Performance Test Engineer Videos

A Day in the Life of Robert, Process Operator at Suncor Energy

Performance Test Engineer Related Careers

Performance Test Engineer Related Jobs

What Similar Roles Do

Resume For Related Jobs

Updated April 6, 2023