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The differences between senior performance engineers and senior software engineers lead can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 2-4 years to become both a senior performance engineer and a senior software engineer lead. Additionally, a senior software engineer lead has an average salary of $129,060, which is higher than the $110,382 average annual salary of a senior performance engineer.
The top three skills for a senior performance engineer include java, jmeter and linux. The most important skills for a senior software engineer lead are java, architecture, and software development.
| Senior Performance Engineer | Senior Software Engineer Lead | |
| Yearly salary | $110,382 | $129,060 |
| Hourly rate | $53.07 | $62.05 |
| Growth rate | 11% | 21% |
| Number of jobs | 95,530 | 322,973 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 66% | Bachelor's Degree, 67% |
| Average age | 44 | 39 |
| Years of experience | 4 | 4 |
Senior Performance Engineers are responsible for optimizing production systems to support traffic growth and new products. Their duties include creating a best practice framework for performance monitoring, scalability, and dependency handling, as well as developing testing infrastructure for post-deployment of production. They are responsible for designing alerts and dashboards, addressing performance issues, conducting root-cause analysis, defining process architecture, and facilitating site reliability in determining requirements for product scalability. Senior Performance Engineers also develop training programs to mentor operation services personnel.
A senior software engineer lead is responsible for overseeing the software creation process. They analyze projects, rectify errors, interpret project requirements, and develop detailed designs. They must create reports of all weekly tasks and ensure best practices are followed by their team.
Senior performance engineers and senior software engineers lead have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Senior Performance Engineer | Senior Software Engineer Lead | |
| Average salary | $110,382 | $129,060 |
| Salary range | Between $83,000 And $146,000 | Between $96,000 And $173,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Mateo, CA | Seattle, WA |
| Highest paying state | California | Washington |
| Best paying company | Netflix | PitchBook Data |
| Best paying industry | Technology | Finance |
There are a few differences between a senior performance engineer and a senior software engineer lead in terms of educational background:
| Senior Performance Engineer | Senior Software Engineer Lead | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 66% | Bachelor's Degree, 67% |
| Most common major | Computer Science | Computer Science |
| Most common college | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Harvard University |
Here are the differences between senior performance engineers' and senior software engineers lead' demographics:
| Senior Performance Engineer | Senior Software Engineer Lead | |
| Average age | 44 | 39 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 76.2% Female, 23.8% | Male, 79.0% Female, 21.0% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 6.2% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 8.8% Asian, 12.0% White, 67.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5% | Black or African American, 4.5% Unknown, 4.8% Hispanic or Latino, 8.2% Asian, 33.4% White, 48.9% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2% |
| LGBT Percentage | 11% | 8% |