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The differences between senior performance engineers and test engineers 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 test engineer. Additionally, a senior performance engineer has an average salary of $110,382, which is higher than the $79,832 average annual salary of a test engineer.
The top three skills for a senior performance engineer include java, jmeter and linux. The most important skills for a test engineer are python, C++, and C #.
| Senior Performance Engineer | Test Engineer | |
| Yearly salary | $110,382 | $79,832 |
| Hourly rate | $53.07 | $38.38 |
| Growth rate | 11% | - |
| Number of jobs | 95,530 | 228,974 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 66% | Bachelor's Degree, 72% |
| Average age | 44 | 44 |
| 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.
Test engineers are professionals who observe and record the quality of products, which includes functionality, durability, speed, and safety. They are responsible for checking the materials and procedures thoroughly throughout the production cycle. It is their duty to run tests on different criteria to identify and fix technical issues. They analyze reactions to determine the causes of malfunctions and recommend potential improvements. Moreover, they test products before they are launched to ensure customers get high-quality and functional products.
Senior performance engineers and test engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Senior Performance Engineer | Test Engineer | |
| Average salary | $110,382 | $79,832 |
| Salary range | Between $83,000 And $146,000 | Between $60,000 And $104,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Mateo, CA | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | California | California |
| Best paying company | Netflix | Meta |
| Best paying industry | Technology | Telecommunication |
There are a few differences between a senior performance engineer and a test engineer in terms of educational background:
| Senior Performance Engineer | Test Engineer | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 66% | Bachelor's Degree, 72% |
| Most common major | Computer Science | Electrical Engineering |
| Most common college | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | California State University - Long Beach |
Here are the differences between senior performance engineers' and test engineers' demographics:
| Senior Performance Engineer | Test Engineer | |
| Average age | 44 | 44 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 76.2% Female, 23.8% | Male, 81.7% Female, 18.3% |
| 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, 6.2% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 8.8% Asian, 12.0% White, 67.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5% |
| LGBT Percentage | 11% | 11% |