Senior performance engineers utilize their knowledge and skills in production system management to help companies optimize their systems and increase traffic growth, among other business goals. Considering this main job duty, senior performance engineers usually have a background in engineering and technology.

The duties of a senior performance engineer can vary, depending on their industry of employment and the needs of their company. In general, however, they are responsible for tasks like developing testing infrastructure, creating best practices for performance monitoring, coming up with strategies for scaling, and suggesting appropriate upgrades or replacements to the management.

If you want to become a senior performance engineer, you would likely need a four-year degree in computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, or something relevant to your intended industry. Along with that, you should also have work experience in a similar role to become an attractive candidate to the majority of employers.

As a senior performance engineer, you will have the potential to earn $102,000 a year. With a higher level of skills and experience, however, you can earn a salary of $130,000 or beyond.

What Does a Senior Performance Engineer Do

There are certain skills that many senior performance engineers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed time-management skills, analytical skills and communication skills.

Learn more about what a Senior Performance Engineer does

How To Become a Senior Performance Engineer

If you're interested in becoming a senior performance engineer, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 65.8% of senior performance engineers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 24.0% of senior performance engineers have master's degrees. Even though most senior performance 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 Senior Performance Engineer

Senior Performance Engineer Career Paths

Average Salary for a Senior Performance Engineer

Senior Performance Engineers in America make an average salary of $110,382 per year or $53 per hour. The top 10 percent makes over $146,000 per year, while the bottom 10 percent under $83,000 per year.
Average Senior Performance Engineer Salary
$110,382 Yearly
$53.07 hourly

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Roles and Types of Senior Performance Engineer

The role of a senior performance 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 senior performance engineer responsibilities:

  • Design and develop benchmarks/workloads to characterize the performance from end-to-end perspective, including ui
  • Support an always-available cloud-based saas platform using monitoring tools to find problems, resolve
  • Strong performance engineering concepts, strong aptitude for performance test planning, identifying performance requirements/targets, test prioritization, schedule/environment/issue management strong/extensive hands on experience in performance testing/execution strong aptitude towards performance investigation, troubleshooting, sharing reports/insights experience as consultant or working in a client-facing role test development experience with strong problem solving skills, fluent/aptitude for coding performance engineering experience such as, instrumentation/apm (dynatrace), mocking/service virtualization, insights/reporting experience in modeling/simulation of complex scenario

There are several types of senior performance engineer, including:

Quality Assurance Analyst

Role:

Quality Assurance Analysts spend a lot of time ensuring that a product is up to the company's standards. From performing software audtis to coming up with processes that test quality, everything is about quality when it comes to your job.

QA analysts notice everything. That's because they're so detail-orientated that no small error will ever get by them. Well, I mean, they're still human so maybe a small error will get by from time to time. No one is perfect.

This job is super useful in a lot of different industries so if you're looking for a career that comes with a lot of opportunity, you're in luck. QA analysts are hired by gaming development companies and software product companies. And when a company's website is ready to launch, QA analysts get a sneak peak to make sure there aren't any errors.

  • Average Salary: $73,532
  • 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 Lead

Role:

We have all witnessed the consequences of quality failures. The explosion of NASA Shuttle Challenger, resulting in the death of all 7 astronauts. The BP Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, resulting in 4 million oil barrels leaking into the Mexican Gulf. Although quality assurance does not seem to be discussed in shareholder's meetings, it should remain at the forefront of how a company leads an operation.

The primary role of a quality assurance lead is to oversee the testing of a product or service to ensure adherence to industry and the organization's standards. They are involved in developing testing plans, creating risk mitigation strategies, and liaising with the product team in suggesting process improvements.

Different industries will require different degrees for a quality assurance lead. For example, working in a food production facility will require a science-related degree, whereas working to maintain the TikTok platform will require an IT degree. A quality assurance lead earns an average of $39 per hour and generally works 40 hours a week.

  • Average Salary: $94,758
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree

States With The Most Senior Performance Engineer Jobs

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

Average Salary: Job Openings:

Number Of Senior Performance Engineer Jobs By State

RankStateNumber of JobsAverage Salary
1California6,331$141,731
2Texas2,384$108,580
3Virginia1,895$100,904
4New York1,632$105,189
5Washington1,613$116,514
6Massachusetts1,500$106,412
7Florida1,451$94,640
8Illinois1,238$101,955
9Maryland1,170$97,932
10Colorado1,102$95,617
11Georgia1,058$94,115
12North Carolina1,039$98,951
13Pennsylvania1,022$100,115
14New Jersey899$109,225
15Arizona787$110,827
16Ohio761$97,011
17Oregon728$130,405
18Minnesota665$102,078
19Michigan658$99,623
20Utah589$114,959
21Indiana512$88,283
22Wisconsin450$93,311
23Alabama441$96,575
24Missouri393$100,369
25Connecticut387$98,591
26Tennessee300$91,868
27Iowa243$91,981
28Kansas222$93,041
29South Carolina219$101,859
30Arkansas219$96,299
31New Hampshire200$98,515
32Kentucky200$92,234
33Nebraska193$101,383
34Delaware191$103,254
35Nevada188$110,118
36Louisiana170$103,513
37Oklahoma164$87,576
38Rhode Island162$104,749
39New Mexico157$92,860
40Idaho142$105,788
41Vermont124$103,517
42Montana116$103,474
43West Virginia98$97,698
44Mississippi94$100,509
45Maine93$89,833
46North Dakota81$98,708
47South Dakota78$104,004
48Wyoming75$109,239
49Alaska68$103,960
50Hawaii67$108,377

Senior Performance Engineer Education

Senior Performance Engineer Majors

Senior Performance Engineer Degrees

Bachelors

65.8 %

Masters

24.0 %

Associate

4.2 %

Top Colleges for Senior Performance Engineers

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Cambridge, MA • Private

In-State Tuition

$51,832

Enrollment

4,550

2. Stanford University

Stanford, CA • Private

In-State Tuition

$51,354

Enrollment

7,083

3. Harvard University

Cambridge, MA • Private

In-State Tuition

$50,420

Enrollment

7,582

4. Duke University

Durham, NC • Private

In-State Tuition

$55,695

Enrollment

6,596

5. University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA • Private

In-State Tuition

$55,584

Enrollment

10,764

6. Georgia Institute of Technology

Atlanta, GA • Private

In-State Tuition

$12,424

Enrollment

15,201

7. Cornell University

Ithaca, NY • Private

In-State Tuition

$55,188

Enrollment

15,105

8. Georgetown University

Washington, DC • Private

In-State Tuition

$54,104

Enrollment

7,089

9. Dartmouth College

Hanover, NH • Private

In-State Tuition

$55,453

Enrollment

4,312

10. Northwestern University

Evanston, IL • Private

In-State Tuition

$54,568

Enrollment

8,451

Top Skills For a Senior Performance Engineer

The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 14.2% of senior performance engineers listed java on their resume, but soft skills such as time-management skills and analytical skills are important as well.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Senior Performance Engineer Resume templates

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

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Senior Performance Engineer diversity

Senior Performance Engineer Gender Distribution

Male
Male
76%
Female
Female
24%

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

  • Among senior performance engineers, 23.8% of them are women, while 76.2% are men.

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

  • The most common foreign language among senior performance engineers is French at 40.0%.

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Best States For a Senior Performance Engineer

Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a senior performance engineer. The best states for people in this position are California, Oregon, Washington, and Utah. Senior performance engineers make the most in California with an average salary of $141,731. Whereas in Oregon and Washington, they would average $130,405 and $116,514, respectively. While senior performance engineers would only make an average of $114,959 in Utah, 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. California

Total Senior Performance Engineer Jobs: 6,331
Highest 10% Earn:
$198,000
Location Quotient:
1.77

2. Oregon

Total Senior Performance Engineer Jobs: 728
Highest 10% Earn:
$182,000
Location Quotient:
1.44

3. Utah

Total Senior Performance Engineer Jobs: 589
Highest 10% Earn:
$158,000
Location Quotient:
1.51
Full List Of Best States For Senior Performance Engineers

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Top Senior Performance Engineer Employers

Most Common Employers For Senior Performance Engineer

RankCompanyAverage SalaryHourly RateJob Openings
1Citi$133,801$64.3312
2JPMorgan Chase & Co.$127,452$61.2727
3Intel$125,331$60.2616
4Tesla$124,011$59.6214
5Intralinks$122,460$58.8817
6ServiceNow$121,899$58.6119
7Akamai Technologies$116,909$56.21102
8AT&T$116,210$55.8713
9The Home Depot$115,642$55.6013
10T-Mobile$110,834$53.2938

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