Lead Performance Test Engineer IV

Description:

Who are we? Western National Insurance Group is a private mutual insurance company with over 120 years of experience serving customers' property-and-casualty insurance needs in the Midwestern, Northwestern, and Southwestern United States. Known as "The Relationship Company®," we define success as a measure of the relationships we've built over time. In everything that we do, we know that delivering a friendly and helpful interaction makes for a better experience for everyone involved. That's the power of "nice". At Western National, nice is something we work to bring to every person and organization with whom we partner and serve. Does this opportunity interest you? Western National is seeking a Lead Performance Test Engineer IV to join our team! The individual in this role will act as the senior technical leader for performance testing, influencing strategy standards, and execution. This individual will define and evolve enterprisewide performance testing frameworks, methodologies, and best practices, ensuring consistency, scalability, and alignment with business SLAs. This role applies deep expertise in performance test design, automation, and results analysis to provide actionable insights, mentor practitioners, and enable reliable, high-performing systems across the organization. What are the responsibilities and opportunities of this role? Defines and evolves enterprisewide performance testing strategy, standards, frameworks, and best practices and ensures consistent adoption across teams and portfolios. Establishes and maintains standards for performance test design, execution, environment readiness, and results reporting. Partners with QA leadership to evolve performance testing practices and organizational maturity. Establishes organizational guidance for capturing, validating, and tracing nonfunctional requirements (NFRs) to performance test scenarios and SLA outcomes. Provides expert oversight of workload modeling and the design of load, stress, soak, endurance, and scalability testing approaches for complex systems. Enables and guides teams in the creation, maintenance, and optimization of performance test scripts, test data, and test environments. Mentors and coaches Performance Test Engineers I-III, strengthening test design rigor, analysis quality, and reporting consistency across the organization. Drives enterprise integration of performance testing within CI / CD pipelines to support continuous feedback and early risk identification. Defines performance reporting standards, including dashboards, SLA validation, trend analysis, and executive-level insights derived from performance test results. Leads cross-team root cause analysis using performance test data and evidence and partners with engineering, architecture, and vendors on remediation planning. Oversees performance test environment readiness, including coordination of deployments, data refreshes, monitoring instrumentation, and test stability. Evaluates and recommends performance testing tools, platforms, and reporting solutions to improve coverage, efficiency, and scalability. Provides technical leadership and guidance over performance testing tools, frameworks, methodologies, and reporting standards. Anticipates enterprise-level performance risks and ensures testing approaches address systemic bottlenecks. Leads complex performance investigations by guiding analysis and root cause efforts using structured test evidence. Translates performance test results into actionable, leadership-ready insights that inform risk and release decisions. Consistently acts according to our customer experience standards, including responding quickly, maintaining a positive attitude, building rapport, demonstrating empathy, managing the customer's expectations, using the proper communication channel for the situation, and taking ownership to ensure the customer's issue is resolved. Partners with engineering, product, architecture, and leadership stakeholders to ensure performance testing practices validate system reliability, responsiveness, scalability, and SLA adherence across the organization. Provides clear, trusted performance insights that enable informed decision making for releases, risk acceptance, and prioritization. Performs special projects and other duties as assigned.

Requirements:

What are the must-have qualifications for a candidate? Ten-plus years of progressive experience in performance testing of enterprise and customer-facing applications, with demonstrated impact across multiple systems or portfolios. Advanced expertise in performance test design and workload modeling, including defining realistic user behavior, data patterns, and test scenarios aligned to business SLAs. Proven ability to lead complex, cross-team performance testing initiatives from strategy through execution, analysis, and stakeholder communication. Deep understanding of performance test automation, including script design, test data management, environment considerations, and integration within CI / CD pipelines. Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret performance test metrics, validate SLA outcomes, identify risk trends, and translate findings into actionable insights. Demonstrated ability to operate independently with minimal oversight while influencing teams and decisions across the organization. Advanced communication skills, including the ability to present performance test results and risk and insights clearly to both technical and executive audiences. Enterprise-level strategic thinking, with the ability to define, scale, and mature performance testing practices across teams and portfolios. Proven ability to lead complex, cross-team performance testing initiatives from planning through execution, analysis, and stakeholder communication. Strong prioritization and organizational skills, enabling oversight of multiple high-impact performance testing initiatives without loss of quality or consistency. Demonstrated mentoring and coaching capability, elevating performance test design, scripting, analysis, and reporting practices across the organization. Advanced mastery of performance testing tools and methodologies, with the ability to select, standardize, and guide usage across teams (e.g., JMeter, Gatling, BlazeMeter, K6, Locust, LoadRunner). Strong performance test automation and scripting skills, including proficiency in languages such as Java, Python, Groovy, or Scala. Experience integrating performance testing into CI / CD pipelines, leveraging tools such as Jenkins, GitLab, Docker, and Kubernetes to enable continuous feedback. Working knowledge of performance monitoring and reporting tools, including APM and telemetry platforms (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, Dynatrace, New Relic). Solid understanding of performance test environment and data management, including environment consistency, configuration, and automation considerations. Bachelor's degree in engineering, computer science, information systems, information technology, or a related technical field, or equivalent relevant experience. Relevant performance testing certifications may be considered in lieu of formal education. What will our ideal candidate have? Experience influencing performance test coverage and prioritization with product owners, engineering leaders, and senior stakeholders. Knowledge of property-and-casualty insurance systems, business workflows, and nonfunctional performance considerations. Demonstrated ability to mentor across teams and experience levels, adapting coaching approaches to different roles and learning styles. Ability to recommend performance testing improvements based on defect trends, historical test evidence, and organizational risk patterns. Compensation overview The targeted hiring range for this role is $130,000 - $155,000, annually. However, the base pay offered may vary depending on the job-related knowledge, skills, credentials, and experience of each candidate, as well as other factors such as the scope and location of the role. Candidates looking for compensation outside of the posted range are encouraged to apply and will be considered based on their individual qualifications and / or may be considered for other positions. Culture and Total Rewards Western National has long been known as "The Relationship Company®" and caring for our employees is part of that relationship commitment. We value connectiveness, empowerment, and accountability, and we believe that our employees are our biggest asset. Currently ranked as the 41st largest private company by revenue in Minnesota (Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal), Western National has earned accolades year-over-year as an employer of choice and garnered multiple awards for wellness in the workplace. Western National has also been named a Top Workplace by the Star Tribune for consecutive years. In addition, the Group is consistently recognized as a Ward's 50 property-and-casualty insurance company for its outstanding financial results. Western National offers full-time employees a significant Total Rewards Package, including: Medical insurance plan options and other standard employee benefits, including dental insurance, vision benefits, life insurance, disability insurance, and more! Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) 401(k) Plan (participants are eligible for 100% matching on the first 6% of their contributions) Wellbeing Program, including onsite fitness studio Paid Time Off - including holiday, vacation, and volunteer 100% company-paid tuition reimbursement for approved job-relevant coursework and access to The Institutes (Risk and insurance education) Paid parental leave Bonus opportunities Western National believes in supporting balance between work and life by providing a flexible work environment, which includes a variety of hybrid and remote work arrangements designed to balance individual, job, department, and company needs. Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time. Western National provides employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. #LI-AN1 #IND123