A key part of this responsibility is to address the "knowledge and process gaps" around performance testing methodologies that currently exist at Weave, fostering a culture where performance is a shared responsibility. - Conduct Deep-Dive Bottleneck Analysis and System Tuning: Go beyond surface-level metrics to perform deep root cause analysis of performance bottlenecks in our distributed architecture.
Requirements
Beyond this initial challenge, you will be the founding member of Weave's performance engineering discipline.
experience that enables any developer at Weave to easily configure, execute, and analyze performance tests for their services with minimal friction.
This platform should be built with a developer-centric mindset, abstracting away the complexity of infrastructure provisioning and test execution while providing powerful, actionable results. - Champion and Codify Performance Best Practices: Develop and document reference implementations for performance testing critical path systems, particularly our Go-based microservices running on Kubernetes.
What You Will Need to Accomplish the Job (minimum qualifications- education, experience, certifications, skills) -
experience in roles such as Performance Engineer, Software Engineer in Test, SRE, DevOps, or Software Engineer with a deep focus on the performance, scalability, and reliability of large-scale distributed systems. - Programming Proficiency: Strong software development fundamentals and significant hands-on
experience building, testing, and maintaining complex applications or infrastructure using Go and/or Python.
Proficiency in Go is highly desired to align with our primary backend language and to contribute effectively to our microservices ecosystem. - Kubernetes Expertise: Deep, hands-on expertise with Kubernetes concepts, architecture, and workflows is required. This includes
experience deploying and managing containerized applications, as well as understanding the nuances of performance tuning within a Kubernetes environment. - CI/CD Mastery: Proven ability to design, implement, and optimize complex CI/CD pipelines to integrate automated testing, including performance testing.
Experience with tools like GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, or similar is essential. - Performance Testing Expertise: Expert-level understanding of performance testing methodologies, including load, stress, spike, endurance, and scalability testing. Demonstrable
experience designing and implementing test strategies for complex microservice architectures, including identifying appropriate metrics and acceptance criteria. - Systems Thinking Acumen: Exceptional analytical, debugging, and problem-solving skills with a proven ability to diagnose and solve complex, cross-service performance issues in distributed systems.
You don't just find bottlenecks; you understand the systemic reasons they occur and can articulate the broader architectural implications. - Collaboration and Communication: Excellent communication skills (verbal and written) with the ability to articulate complex technical ideas clearly and effectively to diverse audiences, including engineers, product managers, and leadership.
experience with modern, script-as-code performance testing tools, particularly k6 (preferred) or Locust.
Experience building custom tooling, libraries, or frameworks around these tools to enhance developer experience is a significant plus.
This demonstrates an alignment with our "test-as-code" and developer-enablement philosophy. - Observability Expertise: Proficiency with modern observability stacks (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, ELK) and extensive
experience using metrics, distributed traces, and logs to correlate application performance with underlying system behavior during performance tests. - Go-Specific Performance Skills:
Experience with Go-specific profiling and debugging tools (e.g., pprof).
Familiarity with the xk6-g0 extension for writing k6 tests directly in Go would also be a plus, as it represents a unique and powerful intersection of the exact skills required for this role: deep Go expertise combined with a modern approach to performance engineering. - Internal Platform Development: A proven track record of building internal developer tools, platforms, or frameworks that have measurably improved engineering productivity, velocity, and software quality within an organization.
experience testing Go-based microservices environments and systems utilizing Kafka, NSQ, Postgres, and/or gRPC.
Employment with Weave is contingent upon the successful completion of a background check, conducted in accordance with applicable laws.
At Weave, we use Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to help us work more efficiently and create a smoother candidate experience.
AI may assist with things like writing job descriptions, scheduling interviews, or reviewing applications against job-related criteria.
For additional information, please review the External AI Policy Statement available on our Careers page.
If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.
Experience
Experience: 5+ years (for Senior level) or 8+ years (for Staff level) of professional
Additional details
Weave is looking for a foundational Senior Backend Engineer - Performance to establish and lead our performance engineering practice.
Weave recently acquired Truelark, and we are preparing to onboard a massive wave of new customers onto their platform.
Your first mission will be to ensure the Truelark platform can scale flawlessly, directly safeguarding customer
experience and revenue during a critical business transition.
This is a high-stakes, high-impact challenge that requires immediate, expert-level engagement to define performance baselines, identify bottlenecks, and guarantee reliability under unprecedented load.
Your long-term strategic mission is to tackle the complex, "third-order" performance issues that arise in our distributed microservices architecture—the subtle inflection points between services that are a leading cause of incidents.
This involves moving beyond testing individual components to understanding and fortifying the systemic behavior of our entire platform.
As a key member of the Test Infrastructure team, your mandate is not just to test, but to build.
You will create the paved-road for performance testing at Weave, developing frameworks, tooling, and reference implementations that empower hundreds of engineers to "move fast without breaking things".
This role requires a platform-oriented mindset, where the primary goal is to enable and multiply the efforts of others, embedding performance as a core component of the software development lifecycle at Weave.