Job Location: Remote
Job Description:
The Azure Performance Engineer is responsible for performance validation, benchmarking, and readiness assessment of Azure VM and hardware SKUs prior to production deployment. This role focuses on end‑to‑end system performance across compute, memory, storage, and networking, ensuring Azure SKUs meet defined performance, scalability, and reliability standards.
The engineer partners with platform engineering, OS/firmware teams, and Datacenter Labs where physical SKU validation is executed, while owning performance methodology, analysis, and reporting.
Responsibilities:
- Define performance validation strategies for new and existing Azure VM and hardware SKUs.
- Execute compute, memory, storage, and network performance benchmarking.
- Establish performance baselines and identify regressions across SKU generations.
- Validate SKU performance against Azure acceptance and readiness criteria.
- Run synthetic and workload‑based benchmarks representing Azure customer usage.
- Analyze system‑level performance metrics, telemetry, and profiling data.
- Identify performance bottlenecks across hardware, hypervisor, OS, and drivers.
- Perform root‑cause analysis for performance anomalies and failures.
- Partner with firmware, BIOS, OS, and platform teams to drive issue resolution.
- Collaborate with Microsoft Datacenter Labs to guide physical performance testing.
- Review lab execution results and ensure alignment with engineering expectations.
- Support repros, re‑tests, and investigation cycles in pre‑production environments.
- Produce performance reports, scorecards, and SKU readiness summaries.
- Present findings to engineering, program management, and leadership stakeholders.
- Provide performance input to SKU go/no‑go and production readiness decisions.
Qualifications:
Required Education & Experience
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
- 5+ years of experience in performance engineering, cloud infrastructure, or systems validation.
- Hands‑on experience with Microsoft Azure or comparable cloud platforms, including VM‑based workloads.
- Strong understanding of compute, memory, storage, and networking performance fundamentals
- Experience designing and executing performance, stress, and scalability tests.
- Ability to analyze system‑level performance metrics, logs, and telemetry.
- Proven experience performing root‑cause analysis across infrastructure and OS layers.
- Proficiency in at least one scripting or programming language (e.g., Python, PowerShell, Bash) .
- Strong written and verbal communication skills to present performance findings clearly.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience working on Azure VM SKU validation or pre‑production qualification workflows.
- Familiarity with Azure architecture and services, including Azure Virtual Machines, storage, and networking.
- Experience collaborating with datacenter lab or hardware validation teams.
- Knowledge of OS‑level and virtualization performance tuning.
- Experience building or maintaining performance automation frameworks.
- Exposure to hyperscale or large distributed systems.
- Microsoft Azure certifications such as:
- Azure Fundamentals (AZ‑900).
- Azure Administrator Associate (AZ‑104).
- Experience supporting cross‑regional or globally distributed engineering teams.
Operational & Professional Skills
- Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills to diagnose complex Azure and infrastructure performance issues
- Proven ability to collaborate effectively across platform, OS, firmware, and datacenter lab teams
- Clear technical communication skills to translate performance data into actionable insights for stakeholders
- Strong ownership mindset with accountability for SKU performance readiness and validation outcomes
- Ability to manage multiple SKUs, test cycles, and priorities in fast‑paced, pre‑production environments
- High documentation and execution discipline, balancing engineering rigor with delivery timelines
