Performance Engineering Lead

Performance Engineering Lead

Changing the world through digital experiences is what Adobe's all about. We give everyone—from emerging artists to global brands—everything they need to design and deliver exceptional digital experiences! We're passionate about empowering people to create beautiful and powerful images, videos, and apps, and transform how companies interact with customers across every screen.

We're on a mission to hire the very best and are committed to creating exceptional employee experiences where everyone is respected and has access to equal opportunity. We realize that new ideas can come from everywhere in the organization, and we know the next big idea could be yours!

We are in search of an adept Performance Engineering Lead to enhance the performance, scalability, and reliability of our commerce backend services. This role includes leading performance benchmarking, analyzing system behavior under load, identifying bottlenecks, and working in tandem with engineering teams to optimize backend systems. The preferred candidate should possess a deep understanding of performance engineering, backend architectures, and modern observability tools.

You will play a key role in establishing performance benchmarks, implementing automated testing frameworks, and ensuring our microservices-based infrastructure can scale effectively under growing demand.

What You Will Do

• Lead performance engineering efforts for backend services, ensuring high availability, scalability, and responsiveness across distributed systems.
• Analyze system performance metrics, identify bottlenecks (e.g., CPU, memory, DB queries, threads), and work with developers to optimize code and configurations.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including software engineers, DevOps, QA, and product managers to define and track performance SLAs and SLOs.
• Embed performance testing into CI/CD pipelines for automated detection of performance regressions.
• Implement observability initiatives, using tools such as Grafana, Prometheus, New Relic, or AppDynamics to monitor real-time application health and performance.
• Conduct performance reviews of new features and architectural changes to assess potential impact on system behavior.
• Guide junior performance engineers, promote guidelines, and lead performance-related knowledge sharing within the organization.

What You Will Need To Succeed

• Skilled in Java and Spring Boot, demonstrating a comprehensive knowledge of backend service architecture and microservices.
• Proven experience in performance testing, tuning, and analysis of distributed systems and high-throughput applications.
• Hands-on experience with performance testing tools such as JMeter, or k6.
• Proficient knowledge of profiling tools and the capability to assess memory, CPU, thread dumps, and GC behavior.
• Familiarity with databases (SQL/NoSQL) and their performance characteristics (e.g., indexing, query tuning, connection pooling).
• Experience with monitoring and observability tools like Prometheus, Grafana, New Relic.
• Proficient understanding of CI/CD pipelines and incorporating performance tests into automated workflows.
• Understanding of cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and container orchestration tools like Docker and Kubernetes.
• Impressive problem-solving and analytical abilities, adept at promptly diagnosing and rectifying performance challenges.
• Effective communication abilities and the skill to persuade cross-functional groups and share results with technical and non-technical collaborators.
• A perspective of continuous improvement and ownership, with a passion for performance, quality, and engineering excellence.

Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several U.S. geographic markets, and we pay differently based on those defined markets. The U.S. pay range for this position is $153,600 -- $286,600 annually. Pay within this range varies by work location and may also depend on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for the job location during the hiring process.

At Adobe, for sales roles starting salaries are expressed as total target compensation (TTC = base + commission), and short-term incentives are in the form of sales commission plans. Non-sales roles starting salaries are expressed as base salary and short-term incentives are in the form of the Annual Incentive Plan (AIP).

In addition, certain roles may be eligible for long-term incentives in the form of a new hire equity award.

Adobe is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on gender, race or color, ethnicity or national origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other applicable characteristics protected by law.