Senior Performance Test Engineer
5 days ago
Birmingham
The roles and responsibilities for this role include but are not restricted to the following: • Leading the design and implementation of performance testing strategy across systems and teams in Citizen Information providing technical leadership and guidance, • Leading delivery of performance testing activities, ensuring that quality, time and cost objectives are met., • Setting the strategic direction for product teams and the Performance Test Engineering community., • Conducting performance testing of applications deployed on Kubernetes Cluster in AWS cloud using performance testing tools like JMeter, K6., • Utilising Git CI/CD pipelines for integrating and automating performance tests in an application development lifecycle., • Defining the scope of performance testing by analysing non-functional requirements including technical architecture, deployment documents and collaborating with stakeholders to gather and understand NFRs., • Building workload models, prepare and execute performance tests and analyse test results for performance optimization., • Monitoring system metrics during testing and ensure accurate evaluation., • Driving standardisation by sharing reusable frameworks, libraries and services, experience, and lessons learned with other DWP teams., • Driving collaboration by aligning what teams are working on and highlighting the key dependencies, impacts and priorities., • Developing appropriate performance test approaches and reporting mechanisms to be agreed with senior stakeholders ., • A strong knowledge of performing different types of performance testing like load, soak, stress. Good understanding of scalability and disaster recovery testing., • Strong analytical skills to interpret test results and provide actionable insights. Raise defects, provide recommendations and take ownership.Person specification See selection process for further details. If you would like to learn more about the role, please contact . Technical skills We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process: • Non Functional - Testing Benefits Alongside your salary of 57,946, Department for Work and Pensions contributes 16,786 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides. We also have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes: • Working patterns to support work/life balance such as job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours., • Generous annual leave at least 25 days on entry, increasing up to 30 days over time (prorata for part time employees), plus 9 days public and privilege leave., • Support for financial wellbeing, including interest-free season ticket loans for travel, a cycle to work scheme and an employee discount scheme., • Health and wellbeing support including our Employee Assistance Programme for specialist advice and counselling and the opportunity to join HASSRA a first-class programme of competitions, activities and benefits for its members (subscription payable monthly)., • Family friendly policies including enhanced maternity and shared parental leave pay after 1 years continuous service., • Funded learning and development to support progress in your role and career. This includes industry recognised qualifications and accreditations, coaching, mentoring and talent development programmes. Salary Information Pay for this role is from 57,946 to 71,017. The maximum salary for the grade is 68,205, however a Digital Allowance of up to 2,812 per annum is available for exceptional candidates. Digital Allowance is non-salary, and non-pensionable, and is classed as a temporary allowance. It is reviewed annually where it could be retained, amended, or removed. Our offer to successful candidates will be based on an assessment of your skills and experience as demonstrated at interview. Existing Civil Servants who secure a new role on lateral transfer will maintain their current salary. Existing Civil Servants who gain promotion will either move to the bottom of the grade pay scale or get a 10% increase to their current salary whichever would be the greater. Things you need to know Selection process details This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window) , and will assess your Experience and Technical skills. Stage 1: Application Your application will consist of four parts: 1. A Personal Details application form., 2. Employment history - this should contain your work experience and any skills, qualifications and accomplishments relevant to the jobs you have completed., 3. Personal statement - up to 1000 words. This statement should be used to provide examples of how you meet the essential criteria below: • Significant demonstrable experience Performance Test Engineer / Lead in an agile team with a pragmatic, strategic mindset with focus on systems scalability and sustainability, • Extensive experience in performance testing APIs, UIs, microservices and enterprise databases (e.g.- MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Oracle)., • Detailed working knowledge with practical experience and skill at identifying performance bottlenecks cross application and infrastructure layers., • Strong working knowledge and practical experience of performance testing tools like JMeter,k6 and performance monitoring tools like Grafana, Kibana, Kiali, Prometheus and AWS CloudWatch., • Detailed working knowledge and familiarity with IaC and modern DevOps practices. 4. Technical statement (up to 250 words). The following statement is aligned to the required technical skill of: Non Functional - Testing: The Technical Statement: Please describe an instance where you have designed and executed a wide range of performance testing techniques and communicate performance test results including any performance bottlenecks and resolutions to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. The sift panel will use the information in your employment history, personal statement, and technical statement to assess your experience, skills and knowledge. An initial sift will be conducted using the technical statement. Candidates who pass the initial sift will be progressed to a full sift. For Hints and Tips on completing your application visit Applying for jobs at DWP Digital. Applications will be sifted at regular intervals from the date the posts are advertised. Please apply as soon as you can, do not wait until the end of the campaign. Important Information • You will be asked to complete your employment history. Any information that you would customarily share on a CV should therefore be entered onto the application form., • Personal details that could be used to identify you including your name, contact details and address must be removed for your application to be considered., • If your employment history, personal statement or technical statement contain any personal details your application will be withdrawn. If youre successful at sift stage you will be invited to a video interview via Microsoft Teams. There, you will be assessed against the experiences listed above. Interviews will take place from mid October 2025. Sift and Interview dates to be confirmed. Further Information: Find out more about Working for DWP If high application volumes are received, the benchmark for candidates to proceed to the next stage may be raised. In line with our commitment to the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS), we aim to advance all candidates applying under the DCS who meet the minimum standard. However, we may only progress those candidates who best meet the required standards. A reserve list may be held for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made. All successful candidates and those placed on reserve will be posted in merit list order by location. For these vacancies, we strongly recommend that applicants consult with an immigration specialist or qualified advisor to assess their eligibility for Visa Sponsorship before deciding to apply. Please note that while we consider sponsorship requests in accordance with current DWP guidance and Home Office policy, sponsorship cannot be guaranteed. Security Clearance Requirement You must meet the security requirements before you can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check. For meaningful checks to be carried out, you will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. Whilst a lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance, and expectation of UK residency may range from 3 to 5 years. Failure to meet the residency requirements needed for the role may result in the withdrawal of provisional jobs offers. For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the Demystifying Vetting website . Reasonable Adjustment At DWP we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce. We consider visible and non-visible disabilities, neurodiversity or learning differences, chronic medical conditions, or mental ill health. Examples include dyslexia, epilepsy, autism, chronic fatigue, or schizophrenia. If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should: Contact Government Recruitment Service via as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs. Complete the Reasonable Adjustments section in the Additional requirements page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if youre deaf, a Language Service Professional. For further information on reasonable adjustments, terms and conditions and how we recruit visit the How we recruit page. The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles. Please ensure that all examples provided in your application are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. Applications will be screened and if evidence of plagiarism or copying examples/answers from other sources is found, your application will be withdrawn. Internal DWP candidates may also face disciplinary action. Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment. Security Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window) . See our vetting charter (opens in a new window) . People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks. Nationality requirements This job is broadly open to the following groups: • UK nationals, • nationals of the Republic of Ireland, • nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK, • nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window), • nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS), • individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020, • Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window) Working for the Civil Service The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants. We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window) . The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy. Diversity and Inclusion The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window) . Apply and further information This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative. The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window) . Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records. Contact point for applicants Job contact : • Name : Richard Hanley Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission Recruitment Principles. If you wish to make a complaint, please find further details here: . Attachments DWP Terms and Conditions January 2024 (3) Opens in new window (docx, 17kB) Success-Profiles-Candidate-Overview-Accessble-Version Opens in new window (docx, 69kB)