Performance Load Test Architect/Lead

Role: Performance Load Test Architect/Lead
Experience : 12+ Years Mandatory Location: This position is primarily Remote; however, will require reporting Onsite to the commission headquarters in Harrisburg, PA for meetings as needed. (Local candidates only)
Duration: 12+ Months Contract
Mode of Interview: Webcam

Description of Duties

• Define and own the overall performance engineering strategy for the Journi program.
• Develop enterprise performance testing standards, governance, methodologies, and best practices.
• Define workload models using historical production metrics and anticipated business growth.
• Establish non-functional requirements (NFRs), service level objectives (SLOs), service level agreements (SLAs), and performance acceptance criteria.
• Lead performance planning activities for Solution Confirmation, PI Planning, SIT, UAT, Go-Live, and Hypercare.
• Review solution architecture to identify scalability risks, performance bottlenecks, and infrastructure constraints early in the SDLC.
• Provide technical leadership for capacity planning and infrastructure sizing recommendations.

Performance Engineering Leadership

• Lead performance testing across:

o SAP BRIM

o SAP Convergent Mediation (CM)

o SAP S/4HANA

o SAP Datasphere

o Dynamics CRM Customer Engagement

o Middleware

o REST/SOAP APIs

o Batch processing

o Event-driven integrations

o Customer web portal

o Mobile applications

o IVR and chatbot platforms

• Define enterprise load profiles for concurrent users, transaction volumes, billing cycles, payment processing, toll transactions, financial processing, and customer service operations.
• Review and approve performance test plans, scripts, workloads, and execution schedules developed by performance analysts.

Architecture, Monitoring & Analysis

• Define enterprise monitoring strategy across application, middleware, SAP, database, infrastructure, and cloud platforms.
• Analyze application response times, throughput, resource utilization, JVM metrics, database performance, middleware queues, API latency, and infrastructure bottlenecks.
• Lead root-cause analysis with development, SAP, CRM, infrastructure, middleware, and vendor teams.
• Recommend application tuning, database optimization, infrastructure scaling, and configuration improvements.
• Validate system readiness for production deployment.

Tooling & Automation

• Lead implementation and administration of NeoLoad as the enterprise performance testing platform.
• Define reusable scripting frameworks and standards.
• Establish automated performance regression testing for major releases.
• Develop performance dashboards and executive reporting.

Collaboration & Leadership

• Present performance status, risks, bottlenecks, and mitigation strategies to executive leadership and project governance boards.
• Fully document all created work associated with this position, including technical and functional designs and diagrams, test plans, test scripts, impact analysis reports, lessons learned, best practices for others to follow, plus any other documentation as required by the Commission. This documentation shall follow the format and / or templates as instructed by the Commission.
• Adhere to and follow all The Commission standards, policies, and procedures.

Minimum Experience/Skillset

• 12+ years of overall IT experience.
• 8+ years of enterprise performance engineering and load testing experience.
• 5+ years leading enterprise performance testing initiatives.
• Expert-level experience with NeoLoad.
• Experience architecting performance testing solutions for enterprise-scale applications.
• Strong experience with SAP BRIM, SAP S/4HANA, SAP Convergent Mediation (CM), SAP Datasphere, CRM platforms, APIs, middleware, and enterprise integrations.
• Experience designing production workload models using historical production metrics.
• Strong knowledge of:

o Capacity planning

o Performance engineering

o Scalability architecture

o Stress, endurance, spike, and failover testing

o API and middleware performance testing

o Batch processing optimization

o Cloud and hybrid infrastructure performance

o Performance monitoring and diagnostics

Certifications / Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field.
• NeoLoad certification is preferred.
• Cloud certifications (Azure or AWS) are preferred.

Engagement Requirements

• Preference given to candidates local to Pennsylvania or within reasonable commuting distance to Middletown, PA.
• Must pass ePATCH and ClearChecks background checks prior to starting.
• The work location will be virtual/remote until further notice. When required to be onsite, the work location will be at either The Commission s Central Administration Building located at 700 South Eisenhower Boulevard in Middletown, PA, or The Commission s Turnpike Industrial Park location located at 2850 Turnpike Industrial Drive, Middletown, PA.
• Position is hybrid/remote with onsite presence required in Middletown, PA for:

o Solution Confirmation

o PI Planning

o Architecture Workshops

o Performance Test Planning

o SIT

o UAT

o Showbacks

o Go-Live

o Hypercare

Candidate Interviewing Guidelines

We value authentic communication and real-time problem-solving during our interview process. To ensure fairness and accurately assess skills, candidates must complete interviews without assistance from Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, scripts, or external prompts.

o At the Commission s discretion, additional interviews may be required in person at an approved Commission facility.

o Travel expenses for in-person interviews will not be reimbursed.

• The resource may be required to provide onsite post go-live support activities at one of the Commission Middletown PA locations. This includes one or more one-to-two week tours of duty onsite on a rotating basis with other team members. The post go-live support period is planned for the six months beginning immediately after the Journi is live with active customers.
• The resource shall attend an orientation session onsite at one of the Commission s Middletown, PA offices. The resource shall be onsite for the full day of this orientation where they will pick up any assigned Commission Equipment, by the resource. Equipment will not be shipped and cannot be pick up by anyone other than the selected resource. Travel costs associated with picking up this equipment plus the orientation day will not be reimbursed.
• The rate is inclusive of any travel costs.