Job Description
Job Type
Full-time
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 Senior Performance Test Engineer to join our team!
The individual in this rolewill participate in strategic planning, project leadership, and mentoring to ensure stability and optimal performance of our software applications. This person will collaborate with both business and technical leaders in the organization and have the opportunity to lead and guide the performance testing efforts and enhance the performance of our online applications by leveraging top-tier enterprise insurance platforms, such as Guidewire.
What are the responsibilities and opportunities of this role?- Actively participates in modeling, designing, and planning of performance test workload and executes performance tests, including integration, stress, load, and regression testing.
- Develops and implements comprehensive performance testing strategies and translates requirements into appropriate test cases.
- Provides guidance and mentorship to team members and fosters growth and best practices within the team.
- Leads the development of automated scripts for load and performance testing and enhances existing testing frameworks.
- Communicates test progress, status, and key performance metrics.
- Drives efforts in performance tuning of applications and systems to continuously improve test coverage and application performance.
- Contributes to the establishment and improvement of performance testing processes, tools, and methodologies to align with industry best practices.
- Solicits nonfunctional requirements from business and defines high-level and micro-level benchmarks to validate performance gains, driving overall automation design for continuous integration and delivery.
- Makes strategic decisions regarding performance testing strategies, automation frameworks, and project leadership.
- Ensures timely proactive identification of performance issues and escalates issues as warranted.
- Creates comprehensive performance test reports with clear metrics.
- Analyzes performance tests results and leads root cause analysis and complex system performance investigations.
- Identifies and provides actionable insights and recommendations.
- Works with architecture and application teams to assess potential impacts of modern technologies and changes in software development releases and ensures the testing practice is up to speed to deliver high-quality software releases.
- Performs special projects and other duties as assigned.
Requirements
What are the must-have qualifications for a candidate?- Experience with load testing tools, such as Karate, Gatling, JMeter, and Blazemeter.
- Experience with performance monitoring and reporting tooling (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog).
- Proven track record of successful project leadership.
- Broad exposure and experience in fully automated QA (Quality Analyst) (e.g., TDD, BDD, performance, security, integration and compatibility, regression, and functional testing).
- Experience in the practical application and embedding of CI and CD pipeline automation tools (e.g., Jenkins, Docker).
- Familiarity with Agile and Scrum methodologies and integrating performance testing into Agile development cycles.
- Foundational skills in the areas of operating systems, networks, general software architecture, and a basic understanding of database concepts.
- Experience with application performance monitoring (APM) tooling, such as New Relic, Dynatrace, Splunk, Datadog, AppDynamics, and LogicMonitor.
- Experience in performance testing of digital, consumer-facing web applications.
- Strong development skills and familiarity with Groovy, Scala, Java, Python, etc.
- Demonstrated ability to consistently communicate clearly and effectively both verbally and in writing with technical and non-technical audiences across all levels of the organization.
- Advanced expertise in performance testing tools and methodologies.
- In-depth knowledge of advanced performance testing tools, such as JMeter.
- Proficient use of various core systems, office and computer equipment, and software packages.
- Bachelor's degree in engineering, technical education, information systems, information technology, science, computer engineering, or relevant performance testing certifications.
What will our ideal candidate have?- Leadership experience and guidance in performance testing.
- Effective communication, conflict resolution, decision-making skills, and ability to influence stakeholders.
- Strategic thinking and contribution to the long-term vision of performance testing within the organization.
- Knowledge of insurance, business, and technical areas; property-and-casualty insurance experience is strongly preferred.
- At least eight years of hands-on experience in performance engineering and testing is strongly preferred.
- Experience in leading and guiding a team of performance test engineers.
Compensation overview The targeted hiring range for this role is $112,590 - $137,610, 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 was also named a Star Tribune Top Workplace in 2021, 2022, and 2023. 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.
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.
Salary Description
$112,590 - $137,610
Job Tags
Holiday work, Full time, Local area, Remote job, Flexible hours,