Senior QA Engineer​/Performance & Load Testing​/NYC

Position: Senior QA Engineer / Performance & Load Testing / NYC
Location: New York

New York, New York Hybrid Contract  $60/hr - $90/hr

Job Description A leading global financial services organization supporting millions of consumer transactions daily is seeking a QA Engineer specializing in Performance and Load Testing to support a major platform integration within its premium global dining division. As the organization brings together two major reservation platforms, this team is focused on ensuring the scalability, reliability, and performance of high-volume, real-time systems.

As a Performance & Load Testing QA Engineer, you'll take a hands-on role designing and executing complex load-testing scenarios across APIs and event-driven architectures. You'll analyze system behavior under heavy traffic, evaluate latency percentiles, throughput, and error rates, and trace performance bottlenecks across application and infrastructure layers. Working closely with engineering teams, you'll help identify system limitations and ensure the platform can support demanding traffic volumes throughout the integration process.

This is an opportunity for an experienced performance testing professional who enjoys deep technical analysis and hands-on problem-solving. The ideal candidate has extensive practical experience with established load-testing tools and a strong understanding of HTTP/API traffic, event-driven systems, and Web Socket communication. This is an individual contributor position focused entirely on technical execution, performance analysis, and helping engineering teams improve system scalability.

This is a long-term contract expected to last at least one year, with the possibility of extension or conversion. The position follows a hybrid schedule, with two to three days per week in the New York City office. Compensation is flexible based on experience and technical expertise.

Required Skills & Experience Extensive hands-on experience with at least one established load-testing tool, such as k6, JMeter, Gatling, or Locust Strong experience testing HTTP traffic, APIs, and event-driven or Web Socket-based systems

Proven ability to analyze performance metrics, including latency percentiles, error rates, and throughput

Demonstrated experience identifying, tracing, and isolating application and infrastructure bottlenecks

Experience designing and executing complex load-testing and performance-testing scenarios

Strong understanding of system scalability, high-volume traffic, and performance limitations

Ability to work as a fully hands-on individual contributor

Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and problem-solving skills

Ability to collaborate effectively with engineering teams to investigate and resolve performance issues

Desired Skills & Experience Experience supporting large-scale platforms with high transaction volumes

Experience testing distributed systems and event-driven architectures

Familiarity with real-time application performance and Web Socket traffic patterns

Experience supporting platform integrations, migrations, or system mergers

Experience analyzing system behavior under varying traffic loads and identifying throughput limits

Background in financial services, consumer platforms, dining, or reservation technology

What You Will Be Doing Daily Responsibilities Design and execute comprehensive load-testing and performance-testing scenarios

Use tools such as k6, JMeter, Gatling, or Locust to simulate high-volume traffic and evaluate system behavior

Test HTTP/API endpoints and event-driven or Web Socket communication

Analyze latency percentiles, throughput, error rates, and other performance indicators

Identify system capacity limits and determine how applications behave under increasing traffic

Trace and isolate bottlenecks across application and infrastructure layers

Investigate performance degradation and provide actionable findings to engineering teams

Collaborate with engineers to optimize system performance, reliability, and scalability

Support performance validation during the integration of two major reservation platforms

Help ensure the platform can reliably handle high-volume, real-time traffic throughout the integration process

The Offer Long-term contract expected to last at least one year Potential for contract extension or conversion

Flexible compensation based on experience and expertise

Hybrid work schedule, with two to three days per week in the New York City office

Opportunity to support a large-scale platform integration within a global financial services organization

Hands-on technical role focused on…