Lead Performance Engineer

Who We Are:

At VML, we are a beacon of innovation and growth in an ever-evolving world. Our heritage is built upon a century of combined expertise, where creativity meets technology, and diverse perspectives ignite inspiration. With the merger of VMLY&R and Wunderman Thompson, we have forged a new path as a growth partner that is part creative agency, part consultancy, and part technology powerhouse.

Our global family now encompasses over 30,000 employees across 150+ offices in 64 markets, each contributing to a culture that values connection, belonging, and the power of differences. Our expertise spans the entire customer journey, offering deep insights in communications, commerce, consultancy, CRM, CX, data, production, and technology. We deliver end-to-end solutions that result in revolutionary work.

The Lead Performance Engineer plays a critical role in ensuring the performance, scalability, and reliability of our innovative platform project that provides holistic AI solutions to our internal and external audiences. This role demands a highly motivated and experienced individual with a deep understanding of performance testing methodologies, tools, and analysis. The Lead Performance Engineer will be responsible for driving the performance testing strategy, mentoring junior team members, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks. This individual will also be instrumental in researching and implementing new performance testing tools and techniques to continuously improve our performance engineering practices.

What you’ll be doing:

• Project Leadership: Support and drive the direction of performance testing projects, focusing on the overall strategy and execution.
• Test Planning & Modelling: Develop comprehensive performance test plans, including defining test scenarios, workload models, and success criteria.
• Mentorship: Mentor and guide junior performance testers, providing technical guidance and fostering their professional development.
• Tool Evaluation & Improvement: Analyse existing performance testing tools and processes, identify areas for improvement, and recommend/implement new tools and technologies.
• Performance Scripting & Analysis: Define, create, and execute performance test scripts using JMeter and other relevant tools. Analyse test results, identify performance bottlenecks, and provide detailed recommendations to the development team for resolution.
• Architecture & Component Analysis: Understand the application architecture, its various components, and their interactions to effectively identify potential performance issues.

What we want from you:

• Performance Testing Tools: Extensive experience with JMeter, K6 or Locust for load generation or other tools like LoadRunner.
• Scripting Python: Including a good understanding of profiling, ability to review source code and recommend optimisations.
• Agile Methodology: Experience leading within an Agile development environment.
• Application Monitoring: In-depth knowledge of application monitoring tools such as Data Dog, Dynatrace, AppDynamics, or New Relic.
• Performance Analysis & Root Cause Determination: Demonstrated ability to identify and diagnose performance problems, conduct root cause analysis, and recommend solutions.
• Cloud & Linux Environments: Strong working knowledge of Linux and cloud platforms (AWS or Google).
• Application Tuning: Experience tuning highly scalable applications, including optimising cache sizes, heap sizes, and other relevant configurations.
• Real User Monitoring (RUM): Experience interpreting and analysing RUM statistics to understand real-world performance.
• Load Forecasting & Resilience Assessment: Ability to forecast load for peak times, assess system resilience, and recommend improvements based on business needs.
• Live System Analysis: Experience pinpointing performance issues in live production systems.
• Backend Testing: Strong backend testing skills, including database knowledge (DB2, Oracle), SQL proficiency, and experience with DB Visualizer.

If you know some of this, even better:

• Performance Monitoring Setup: Experience setting up performance monitoring using Grafana, APMs, or other tooling.
• Experience with Locust
• E-commerce Expertise: Proven experience in performance testing and analysis of e-commerce applications, preferably with platforms like IBM WebSphere Commerce, SAP Hybris, or Magento.
• Continuous Delivery Integration: Experience implementing performance testing in a continuous delivery environment.
• Development Languages: Exposure to Java or PHP.
• Frontend Performance Analysis: Experience with front-end page load analysis, profiling, and optimization using tools like WebPageTest, PageSpeed Insights, SpeedCurve, or sitespeed.io.

In return, this is what you can expect from us:

• Hybrid way of working (2 office days, 3 days working from home)
• Private health insurance package (for employees working with us for a year and more)
• International and in-house training possibilities
• Education budget to suit your own development
• International projects
• Diverse teams (in 2023 our office has the the 'Most diverse Company' special award in the Loveable Workplace competition)

And there's more:

• Kid and dog friendly office
• Annual team building days and many fun events
• Award-winning and well-equipped office

Our Enterprise Solutions division houses strategic consultants, creative and technical architects and skilled developers and operators that together help some of the world’s leading organisations to deliver outstanding digital experiences across all major routes to market worldwide: marketplaces, online retailers, D2C, B2B and social platforms. With over 4,200 experts in 55 operational centres across 34 countries, our capabilities span the entire buying journey from customer acquisition, through engagement, to conversion and loyalty, driving multi-channel growth for world-leading brands.

We work with some of the most exciting brands such as The Coca-Cola Company, EY, Bosch, Unilever, Ford, DFS, Mercedes-Benz, Johnson & Johnson, Nestlé, Sainsbury’s, Selfridges, Shell and Tiffany & Co. We’ve built over 500 platforms for brands and retailers and generate in excess of $29bn annually for our clients and work with over 50 strategic partners including Adobe, SAP, Salesforce, HCL, Shopify, Sitecore, BigCommerce, commerce tools and Acquia. Our reputation is based on our people, and we believe we have some of the best in the business.

As our business grows internationally, we’re looking for new people to join us on our journey to inspire and take a key role in shaping some of the best commerce solutions, services, and websites in the world. Working as a team, no problem is insurmountable; we share in our client’s successes and believe that anyone can show creative bravery no matter what their role is in the team.

#LI-EMEA #LI-HYBRID #LI-AS1

At VML, we are committed to fostering an all-inclusive work environment that is both rewarding and career-forward. Our Inclusion, Equity & Belonging initiatives, alongside the VML Foundation, reflect our dedication to giving back and making a positive impact in our communities and beyond. Our people are the heartbeat of our organization—creators, doers, innovators, makers, and thinkers—who drive not just marketing, but meaningful experiences that resonate in every action and interaction.

VML is a WPP Agency. For more information, please visit our website, and follow VML on our social channels via Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.

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