Lead Performance Engineer

About the role

We are seeking a dynamic and experienced Lead Performance Engineer to join our growing team in Portugal. This is a pivotal, permanent role that combines deep, hands-on technical expertise with strategic leadership, client engagement, and mentorship. Reporting to the Principal Performance Engineer, you will be a key figure responsible for safeguarding and enhancing the performance, scalability, and reliability of our clients' critical digital platforms. We are looking for a multi-faceted professional who brings a blend of deep technical knowledge, strong leadership qualities, and a strategic, consultative mindset. You have extensive, hands-on experience in performance engineering, with a demonstrable history of improving performance for complex, large-scale, highly transactional applications. You are someone who not only solves technical problems but also builds relationships, guides teams, and drives business value.

Responsibilities

• Leadership, Strategy & Client Engagement:
• Act as a performance engineering consultant for key clients, building strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders, providing expert guidance, and confidently leading technical discussions to non-technical audiences.
• Champion the value of performance engineering across the business, demonstrating its impact on user experience, conversion, and client ROI.
• Mentor and guide junior to mid-level engineers, fostering a culture of performance excellence and continuous learning.
• Contribute to and implement wider performance engineering strategies, evolving practices, and tooling (e.g., K6, Playwright, APM tools).
• Demonstrate strong AI literacy, with practical experience using generative AI (e.g., LLMs, code-gen tools) as a productivity multiplier for tasks such as script/data generation and analysis. Drive innovation in Performance Monitoring and Testing using AI.
• Collaborate with account and leadership teams to identify opportunities and contribute to commercial proposals.
• Hands-on & Release Activities:
• Lead performance testing efforts, including workload modeling, test execution, root cause analysis, and reporting.
• Develop and present clear, actionable reports on key performance metrics (including Core Web Vitals) to both technical and business stakeholders.
• Own the configuration and maintenance of APM and observability tools (e.g., New Relic, DataDog, Dynatrace), including designing meaningful dashboards and robust alerting strategies, as dedicated observability engineers are not always present.
• Act as the performance authority within development teams, providing expertise and oversight, particularly regarding the impact of changes on analytics and sales revenue.
• Drive the agenda for performance optimization, introducing new testing capabilities within allocated projects.
• What We Want from You:
• Technical Expertise:
• Programming: Strong proficiency in JavaScript/TypeScript is critical for new development in K6; additional languages (e.g., Python, Java) are a plus.
• Cloud Platform Experience: Demonstrable experience on major cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Web Technologies: Solid experience with front-end performance analysis (Core Web Vitals) and a strong grasp of platforms and architectural concepts (e.g., Next.js, Magento, SAP Hybris, Shopify).
• Analytical Skills: Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with an understanding of concepts like parameterization in performance testing.
• Leadership & Soft Skills:
• Communication: Exceptional communication skills with the ability to curate the right level of content for different audiences, from developers to senior leadership.
• Growth Mindset: A proactive, self-starting attitude with the drive to push boundaries and champion best practices. You remain cool and collected under pressure, can handle constructive feedback, and have a keen awareness of emerging technologies.
• Mentorship & Collaboration: A passion for mentoring with proven experience guiding less experienced engineers. You share knowledge proactively, collaborate across disciplines, and advocate for integrating performance early in the SDLC.
• Strategi

Additional Information

About WPP WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world's leading brands. We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel in a single company - powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth. For more information, visit WPP.com .

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