Performance QA Lead

Contractor Intake Form – Performance & Reliability Engineer (Guidewire Platform) Role Summary We are establishing a Sustaining Engineering team focused on improving performance, stability, reliability, and observability of the Guidewire platform (PolicyCenter, BillingCenter, and integrations). We are seeking a contractor who operates at the intersection of performance engineering, system reliability, and integration testing, with the ability to diagnose and validate improvements across distributed system flows. Engagement Overview Role Type: Contract - SOW Team: Sustaining Engineering Work Model: Cross-team, platform-focused Reporting Structure: Reports into Sustaining Engineering Dotted line to internal Performance Engineer Primary Goal: Improve overall system health through root cause identification and measurable validation of fixes Key Objectives Support remediation of Guidewire Platform Health findings (performance, integration, stability) Establish or enhance p erformance and reliability testing strategy Baseline, measure, and track: Latency Throughput Error rates Integration success/failure rates Batch/job stability and success rates Validate that fixes result in measurable improvements in system health Contribute to a repeatable, scalable performance and reliability testing practice Core Responsibilities Performance & System Testing Design and execute: Performance, load, and stress tests End-to-end system tests across PolicyCenter and BillingCenter Validate system behavior under normal and peak conditions Integration & Distributed System Validation Test and analyze: API interactions Asynchronous processing / messaging flows Cross-system data movement (PC ↔ BC) Identify and diagnose integration failures and inconsistencies Batch & Work Queue Stability Validate: Batch job execution and performance Work queue processing and failure handling Identify retry issues, bottlenecks, and backlog risks Root Cause Analysis Analyze: Application-layer bottlenecks JVM/thread behavior Database query performance API latency and failure points Distinguish root causes vs symptoms Observability & Error Analysis Analyze system logs and monitoring outputs Identify: High-noise vs actionable errors Gaps in logging and monitoring Recommend improvements to observability Engineering Collaboration Partner with developers to address: Query optimization Code-level performance issues Integration reliability Error handling improvements Translate findings into clear, actionable recommendations Validation & Reporting Provide before/after metric validation for fixes Support sprint/release reviews with quantifiable improvements Help establish consistent reporting on system health Required Skills & Experience Technical Capabilities Strong experience in performance and reliability testing in distributed systems Hands-on experience with performance testing tools: JMeter, Gatling, LoadRunner, or similar Experience testing system integrations: APIs (REST/SOAP) Async processing / messaging systems System Analysis Skills Ability to analyze: JVM / thread behavior Database queries and performance API latency and throughput Batch/job execution patterns Experience diagnosing: Integration failures High error volumes and log noise Systemic vs localized issues Working Style Strong root cause analysis mindset (not just defect identification) Ability to translate technical findings into actionable insights Comfortable working in cross-team, platform-level environments Preferred Qualifications Experience with Guidewire (PolicyCenter and BillingCenter strongly preferred) Insurance domain knowledge (policy and billing flows) Experience with: Batch processing / job scheduling systems Observability tools (e.g., DataDog) Background in: SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) Platform engineering Systems-level QA Success Criteria The contractor will be successful if they demonstrate: Measurable improvements in: System performance (latency, throughput) Integration reliability (reduced cross-system failures) Batch/work queue stability Reduction in error noise and improved observability Consistent ability to identify true root causes across system layers Clear contribution to sustained system health improvements Establishment of repeatable performance and reliability testing practices Job Description: Work on Performance Test Strategies/Test Plans Identify Performance Test Requirements/Test Scenarios Define and Validate Workload Models with the Project Teams Create Test Case Workflow/Performance Test Scripts Validate Monitoring tools Validate Test Environments are ready, available, accurate, etc. Define, communicate and plan test schedule/windows Execute test per planned windows and analyze executed tests Document defects in Microfocus Quality Center Review Test Results Create Results Report Mandatory skills: Experience in Performance testing, monitoring and analysis with excellent reporting Skills Experience in Test Strategy, Test Design, Test Plan report Experience in creating performance test scripts using different protocols like Web (HTTP/HTML), TruClient, Web Services, REST and .Net applications Experience in creating different type of scenarios to simulate different load and users pattern for Stress Test, Peak Load Test, Endurance Test, Volume test and other different type tests Experience in tools like Loadrunner, Jmeter, AppDynamics, Splunk ( or other APM Tools) for Web/App and DB layers Good experience on Performance testing of the Web (HTTP/HTML), TruClient, Web Services, REST and .Net applications Proficiency in one or more general purpose programming languages. Good understanding of agile methodologies and agile performance testing. Knowledge of Storm Runner tool Ability to work in team in diverse/ multiple stakeholder environment Good communication skills Good Analytical skills Experience and desire to work in a Global delivery environment Desired Skills: Experience in WAS tuning, JVM tuning, PL SQL tuning experience. Working knowledge in debugging of performance scripts, identification of performance bottlenecks using drill down analysis using monitoring tools; Interaction with various stake holders for performance issue resolution Development performance testing solution for small services in Devops world. Strong understanding of techniques such as Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, Test Driven Development, Cloud Development, application resiliency and security Experience in working for cloud-based application performance testing and tuning Experience in CI/CD pipeline for performance testing.