Senior Performance SDET | 100% Remote - EMEA Based

NOTE: This is a FULLY remote role. Candidates must be physically based within EMEA to ensure effective collaboration with the team, peers, and internal customers. Location within a specific country or city is flexible, but EMEA residency is mandatory.

Hostaway is a profitable, high-growth SaaS scale-up transforming the vacation rental industry. We are recognized as the first short-term rental PMS unicorn. We leverage innovative solutions and strategic partnerships with industry giants like Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking to drive success. Our customer-centric core values promote continuous growth, learning, and innovation for our team and customers.

Join us during our most exciting stage yet! Learn more about our recent valuation and story here.

About the Role

Hostaway is seeking a highly specialized Senior Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) with a background in performance testing. This role is critical to ensuring our platform performs flawlessly at massive scale as we continue our rapid growth.

Your Mission: Performance Engineering and Scale

As a Senior SDET specializing in Performance Testing, you will design, implement, and execute sophisticated load testing strategies to ensure Hostaway maintains an exceptional user experience under massive scale.

You are an expert performance engineer who moves beyond simple load generation. You will craft realistic scenarios mirroring production traffic patterns, design complex load profiles to expose bottlenecks pre-production, and build the necessary tooling and infrastructure for testing at scale. You understand that modern performance testing involves testing as code, production traffic replay, and continuous performance validation integrated into CI/CD pipelines.

Driven by data and metrics, you will establish performance baselines and create automated performance regression tests to catch degradations before they impact customers. You will collaborate closely with engineering teams to identify bottlenecks, optimize system behavior, and ensure every release meets stringent performance standards.

Required Skills & Experience

• 5+ years of experience in performance testing and engineering within SaaS or Professional Services environments
• Expert-level proficiency with modern performance testing tools like K6, Artillery, Gatling or Locust
• Expert-level proficiency in at least one programming language
• Proven experience with production traffic capture and replay techniques (e.g., GoReplay, ShadowReader, Speedscale, or similar)
• Deep expertise in test data management including data generation, provisioning, and state management for performance testing
• Experience with CI/CD tooling (GitHub Actions, Jenkins, GitLab CI) and integrating performance tests into pipelines
• Familiarity with observability and monitoring tools (DataDog, New Relic, Grafana, Prometheus)
• Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and understanding of distributed systems performance
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret complex performance data and identify root causes
• Outstanding communication skills with the ability to explain performance concepts to technical and non-technical audiences

Nice to Have

• Experience with Kubernetes and containerised application performance testing
• Knowledge of distributed load testing architectures and scaling test infrastructure
• Familiarity with chaos engineering principles and tools
• Experience with browser-based performance testing (Playwright, Puppeteer)
• Understanding of database performance tuning and query optimisation
• Previous experience with PHP or willingness to dive into PHP business logic
• Experience in coaching and mentoring other engineers on performance testing practices
• Contributions to open-source performance testing tools or frameworks
• Experience with service virtualisation and mocking for performance testing
• Knowledge of performance profiling tools and APM solutions

An Average Day for a Senior SDET (Performance Testing)

1. 10:00–10:15 Quick team stand-up. Initiate a session to discuss performance requirements, load expectations, and potential bottlenecks for a major feature release.
2. 10:30–14:00 Analyze production traffic patterns to design realistic load scenarios for an upcoming test, crafting a new script that mirrors actual user behavior.
3. 14:00–15:00 Join the engineering team to review performance test results from the CI run, identifying and working to pinpoint the root cause of an API response time regression.
4. 15:00–16:00 Provide invaluable input on performance implications, load testing strategy, and test data requirements for a new third-party integration during a discussion with the product manager and tech lead.
5. 16:00–18:00 Focus time to build test data provisioning scripts, refine the performance testing framework, and set up automated performance budgets in the CI/CD pipeline.

What We Offer

• Competitive Compensation: Competitive pay based on market rates in the applicant's country.
• 100% Remote: Work from anywhere within your country of residence (no physical office requirement).
• Equity: Valuable stock options provided to all roles in our fast-growing, profitable company, ensuring shared success.
• Values-Driven Leadership: Core Values are leveraged daily in strategic and tactical decision-making.
• Professional Growth: Rapid growth offers unparalleled learning, development, and career advancement opportunities.
• Annual Paid Leave: Specific amounts vary, aligned with country and/or contract-specific norms.
• Geographic Specific Benefits: International employer offering country-specific benefits like Health Insurance and Pensions where customary.
• Dynamic Team Culture: A diverse, international culture with team members in over 40 countries fuels innovation and creativity.

Thank you for your interest. Our Talent Acquisition team will contact you via email after reviewing your application against the role qualifications.