How to hire a good performance test engineer

How to hire a good performance test engineer?

Translator: Take Technology

Original: What makes a good performance Engineer? (Scott Moore)

Friends recently need to hire some performance test engineers, asked me: "A good performance engineers need what quality?" "After my after thinking finally thought about something, I felt it necessary to share my views with you, and you could join in your opinion, which would help bosses make smart choices when hiring performance test engineers.

What needs to be stated is that the object listed here is not intended as a formal job description of the Human resources department, but more about principles and concepts.

Skill aspects

You need someone who knows the latest computer technology and concepts. Why is it important that he needs to skillfully install the operating system (including Windows, Linux, etc.) and set up his own network? Because he often needs to build a test environment for himself in his work.

Network Knowledge Essentials – you need someone who knows the OSI model well, he should know about TCP/IP, need to know DNS, DHCP, WINS, routing/switching/network hubs, and know how they work. Why is this needed? Since he may need to use network sniffing tools to locate network bottlenecks, it is clear that he needs to know what he is sniffing. As a performance test engineer, in the face of some simple network problems should be able to solve their own, and do not need to be responsible for the network of engineers to help, he should be able to solve a similar LoadRunner controller and load generator connection between the problem, As long as you know the network access, IP address settings and other common problems can be solved.

Protocol – The minimum requirement is that he is able to easily create test scripts for those protocols used in the project product. Of course, it's better to have more protocols and have a variety of protocols to test scripting development experience, such as Winsock, COM, HTTP, Citrix, and so on, because you don't know when you might be able to use these things.

Although I don't ask him to be a "code freak" or a developer, he should be able to read HTML, ASP, JSP, JAVA, C and other code, and can understand the ins and outs of the code. Because these things are not only needed for test script development, but are especially important for locating code bottlenecks, it is clear that the more he knows about the code, the more problems he will find.

Knowledge of SQL (including query statements, stored procedures, indexes, database management, backup restores, etc.). Database is one of the main bottlenecks in complex application system. Finding the cause of the bottleneck in this regard is generally a DBA, but if your performance test engineer doesn't know anything about it or how to deal with the database, he may have overlooked some of the key things.

He needs to "looking at the whole world". He should be aware of his role in the SDL (software Development life cycle). He should know what developers, project managers, QA and system administrators do, and know how to deal with them. Sometimes you may find people who are technically strong, who are very good at their "little world", but just see their own "little world" without knowing the impact on others at the organizational level.

He should be able to use the testing tools chosen by your company very skillfully. If he had mastered one of them, the others would have been easier to master, but it would be better to choose someone with at least one year of practical experience.

Non-technical aspects

Just as important as the skills described above are: performance testing engineers should be familiar with the industry's commonly used performance testing, performance tuning, capacity planning methods and processes. Instead of just pressing a button to perform the test.

He should master a set of planning, testing and tuning best practices and methodologies, and be able to adapt and customize according to the company's actual situation. Of course, if you're hiring an entry-level person, you don't need it, but they need to follow the company's current situation to build it.

A good engineer should always be a consultant, even if his customer is an insider. If he does not treat everyone as a customer, perhaps you have brought him in directly to create a continuous war with the development team. He should be docile, flexible, able to withstand stress and remain calm, respectful and courteous.

The ultimate goal of the performance testing team should be to keep everyone in the best position for the release of the product before it is released, and to work on a product that is superior in performance. In return, everyone likes the performance Test team because they help people get the program running faster and quicker. In fact, this means that the performance test engineers you hire must have good communication skills, and they should be considered as collaborators to help others, rather than being seen as the "way stone" for the entire project.

I would prefer to introduce people who are passionate. I usually look for people who are constantly expanding their knowledge. When they come to a project, they get excited about agreements that have not been touched, because it means they have a chance to learn something new. They will keep in touch with other companies, network performance test engineers, and build a good technical support system. They often participate in a variety of activities, user groups, and meetings.

Finally, there are other simple points: he should be able to remind and urge, ask others to do something, and be able to let others willingly and gladly accept the situation. He should do his best to help others, even if he needs to sacrifice himself a lot of time and spend a lot of energy. He should be very willing to share knowledge. He knows when to be a leader and when to be a follower. These are all things that need to be examined at the time of employment.

Summary

I was lucky enough to meet a lot of really good performance test engineers. Those full-time advisers tend to be busy, because they have similar qualities to work. I think more of their non-technical abilities, not their skills, to keep them ahead of themselves and to stay in higher positions. Do you have any other suggestions about the quality requirements of a good performance test engineer? If so, you are welcome to publish and discuss together.

Translator PostScript:

this is 2004 . years of an article, but it still looks very practical today. The recent big environment is not very good, a lot of people especially college graduates to find work is difficult, this article is about how to recruit a good performance test engineer, but I feel more suitable for those who want to find performance testing aspects of the work of people read. See what else is lacking in skills and non-skills.

A qualified performance test engineer requires a wide range of knowledge, to become an excellent performance test engineer, not a year or two of the effort is impossible to talk about. A lot of knowledge we also learned in the university, but did not grasp, come out to find a job only regret that did not learn well. Of course, there are a lot of practical technical things that are difficult to learn in today's university education system, requiring personal effort or mastery through follow-up training. In addition, as mentioned in the article, a lot of non-technical aspects of things that need to work slowly to understand and grasp.

How to hire a good performance test engineer