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Director Performance Engineering Jobs in Atlanta, GA

DPDHL

Performance Engineer II

Fairburn, GA

$55K - $90K/yr

Under direct supervision from the Sr. Operations Performance Engineer, conducts studies to determine engineered labor standards. Evaluates efficient sequence of operations and work flow and ...

DHL

Performance Engineer II

Fairburn, GA · On-site

$55K - $90K/yr

Under direct supervision from the Sr. Operations Performance Engineer, conducts studies to determine engineered labor standards. Evaluates efficient sequence of operations and work flow and ...

Dlapiper

Director, Engineering

Atlanta, GA · On-site

Responsible for providing performance feedback on a regular basis. Desired Skills Enterprise application architecture and modern development practices. Strategic planning and execution in complex ...

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Director Performance Engineering information

See Atlanta, GA salary details

$70.2K

$187.2K

$244.3K

How much do director performance engineering jobs pay per year?

As of Aug 29, 2026, the average yearly pay for director performance engineering in Atlanta, GA is $187,244.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $136,100.00 and $243,300.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What does a director of performance engineering do?

A Director of Performance Engineering leads teams responsible for ensuring that software, systems, or applications perform optimally and efficiently at scale. They set performance goals, develop testing strategies, and oversee the identification and resolution of bottlenecks. This role involves collaborating with engineering, operations, and product teams to build robust, high-performing solutions. Additionally, they provide technical leadership, mentor team members, and define best practices for performance testing and monitoring.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a director of performance engineering?

To thrive as a Director of Performance Engineering, you need deep expertise in software performance optimization, systems architecture, and a strong background in computer science or a related field, often with advanced degrees or equivalent experience. Familiarity with performance testing tools (such as JMeter, LoadRunner), monitoring platforms (like New Relic, Dynatrace), and cloud infrastructure is typically required, along with certifications in relevant technologies. Exceptional leadership, cross-functional collaboration, and strategic problem-solving abilities make candidates stand out in this role. These skills are crucial for driving high-performing teams, ensuring system reliability, and delivering scalable solutions that support business objectives.

How does a director of performance engineering typically collaborate with cross-functional teams to drive system optimization?

A Director of Performance Engineering frequently works closely with software development, operations, and product teams to identify performance bottlenecks and implement solutions. They lead performance reviews, set benchmarks, and coordinate testing strategies to ensure systems meet business requirements. Regular communication and joint troubleshooting sessions are common, as the role requires balancing technical needs with business priorities. This collaborative approach helps ensure that performance goals are aligned across the organization and that issues are resolved efficiently.

What is the difference between Director Performance Engineering vs Performance Engineer?

AspectDirector Performance EngineeringPerformance Engineer
ResponsibilitiesOversees performance testing strategies, manages teams, and aligns performance goals with business objectives.Conducts performance testing, analyzes system performance, and reports findings to improve application efficiency.
Required SkillsLeadership, project management, advanced performance testing expertise, and strategic planning.Technical performance testing skills, scripting, and performance analysis.
Work EnvironmentSenior management, cross-functional teams, strategic planning sessions.Technical teams, testing labs, development environments.

The main difference is that the Director Performance Engineering leads and strategizes performance initiatives at an organizational level, while the Performance Engineer focuses on executing performance tests and analyzing system performance. The director role involves leadership and planning, whereas the performance engineer role is more technical and hands-on.

What are the most commonly searched types of Performance Engineering jobs in Atlanta, GA?

The most popular types of Performance Engineering jobs in Atlanta, GA are:

What are popular job titles related to Director Performance Engineering jobs in Atlanta, GA?

For Director Performance Engineering jobs in Atlanta, GA, the most frequently searched job titles are:

What job categories do people searching Director Performance Engineering jobs in Atlanta, GA look for?

The top searched job categories for Director Performance Engineering jobs in Atlanta, GA are:

What cities near Atlanta, GA are hiring for Director Performance Engineering jobs?

Cities near Atlanta, GA with the most Director Performance Engineering job openings:

Director Performance Engineering jobs near you

Senior Performance Engineer

Atlanta, GA • On-site

Intercontinental Exchange Holdings, Inc.
Finance and Insurance • 5 - 10K employees
Learn more about Intercontinental Exchange Holdings, Inc.external

Full-time

Posted 23 days ago

Job description

Overview
Job Purpose
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) is hiring a Senior Performance Engineer to help own performance for our derivatives trading platform - order entry, matching engine, and market data distribution. These are latency-sensitive, business-critical systems where a regression measured in microseconds is a business event.
You will join a small, established performance engineering team. We are hiring a senior engineer to take direct ownership of a substantial share of the platform's performance work. This is not a support seat - you will run campaigns and own conclusions from day one, with an experienced team around you.
The role spans the full performance lifecycle: designing and running test campaigns, profiling pre-production code to surface bottlenecks before release, and diagnosing degradation in production. It is hands-on and deeply technical, suited to an engineer who is equally comfortable profiling a JVM under load, reading a flame graph, and explaining a latency regression to a development team in terms they can act on.
You will use AI tooling to accelerate test design, result analysis, and incident diagnosis - while remaining personally accountable for measurement quality and for every technical conclusion you present.
Responsibilities
  • Own end-to-end performance validation for assigned areas of the derivatives trading platform: order entry, matching engine, and market data distribution paths.
  • Design and execute load, stress, and capacity test suites against pre-production and production-like environments.
  • Profile pre-production services to identify bottlenecks across CPU, memory, I/O, threading, garbage collection, network, and database layers, and partner with development teams to resolve findings before release.
  • Establish and maintain production performance baselines; proactively identify degradation and emerging risk.
  • Investigate latency and capacity events in production, producing formal root cause analyses and corrective action plans.
  • Contribute to capacity planning and infrastructure sizing recommendations grounded in measured behavior and growth projections.
  • Plan and execute non-functional testing - resiliency, failover, scalability, and capacity validation. Expect this to be roughly 20% of your time.
  • Document methodology, results, and findings to a standard suitable for internal engineering audiences and, where applicable, audit and regulatory review.
  • Contribute to the team's shared tooling, harnesses, and measurement practice.

AI-Assisted Performance Engineering
  • AI tooling is part of the standard workflow here, not an experiment. You will use it to draft workload models and test scaffolding from production metrics, SLAs, and prior incidents; to accelerate analysis of profiler output, GC logs, traces, and packet captures; and to shorten first-pass RCA and produce engineering- and audit-ready write-ups.
  • The bar is that you validate what comes back. You own the statistical soundness of the workload model, the identification of the bottleneck, the stated root cause, and the corrective actions - regardless of what produced the first draft.

Knowledge and Experience
  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
  • 5+ years in performance engineering and testing.
  • Demonstrated experience designing workload models and executing performance test campaigns against distributed, multi-tier systems, using tools such as JMeter, Gatling, k6, or LoadRunner.
  • Demonstrated experience diagnosing performance problems in latency-sensitive systems using profilers and system tooling - for example perf, eBPF/bpftrace, async-profiler, JFR, flame graphs, or Intel VTune.
  • A rigorous statistical approach to measurement: you understand why averages mislead, how coordinated omission distorts results, and how to build tests that produce defensible numbers.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication, including the ability to explain a latency distribution to a room that contains both kernel engineers and business stakeholders.
  • Deep working knowledge in at least two of the following, with working familiarity across the rest:
    • Linux internals as they relate to performance - scheduling, memory management, interrupt affinity, kernel and network tuning.
    • JVM internals - the Java memory model, JIT behavior, escape analysis, GC algorithms and their pause characteristics (G1, ZGC, Shenandoah), off-heap memory management.
    • Networking fundamentals - TCP/IP, UDP multicast, packet capture and analysis, and measurement of network-induced latency and loss.

Preferred Knowledge and Experience
  • Proficiency in Java, C++, or Python.
  • Applied experience using AI coding agents in a routine performance or development workflow - test-script authoring, log and metric analysis, RCA drafting. Hands-on experience with Claude Code or a comparable agent, including agent skills or MCP servers connecting agents to APM platforms, logs, or test harnesses, is a plus.
  • Experience with low-latency or high-throughput systems, ideally in financial services, trading, or market data.
  • Kernel-bypass and accelerated networking: Solarflare/Onload, DPDK, RDMA, or FPGA-assisted paths.
  • Hardware and colocation tuning: BIOS/firmware configuration, C-state and frequency management, PTP/PPS time synchronization, hardware timestamping.
  • APM platforms such as Dynatrace, AppDynamics, or OpenTelemetry.
  • Chaos engineering, resiliency testing, or disaster recovery validation.

Schedule
  • Onsite in our Atlanta office five days per week.
  • No on-call rotation.
  • Occasional weekend work to support major platform releases. This is infrequent and scheduled in advance.

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Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to legally protected characteristics.

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