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Senior Director, Performance Engineering -Infrastructure and Reliability

IFS
Staines, GBR
Full-time
Senior · 10+ years experience
Onsite
Discovered 4 days ago
Communication

Full Job Posting

Required skills and experience

  • Proven software engineering experience with 5+ years focused on performance engineering, scalability, or systems optimization.
  • Deep hands-on expertise across the performance stack: frontend performance optimization, API design and efficiency, backend systems optimization, database query tuning, caching strategies.
  • Proven track record leading cross-functional performance initiatives at scale; demonstrable impact on product performance, customer experience or operational cost.
  • Strong expertise in observability, monitoring and measurement; ability to instrument systems for performance visibility and derive actionable insights from performance data.
  • Experience optimizing cloud and infrastructure costs; understanding of container orchestration, database optimization, and resource efficiency.
  • Experience designing and optimizing systems for scale; understanding of load testing, capacity planning, and systems behavior under peak demand.
  • Experience with performance tooling: profilers, load testing tools, APM (Application Performance Monitoring), observability platforms, cost management tools.
  • Strong leadership and communication skills; ability to influence engineering teams and executives on performance investment without formal authority.
  • Familiarity with emerging performance challenges: AI/ML inference optimization, generative AI latency and cost trade-offs, agentic system performance.
  • Scope and expectations
  • Strategic leadership role accountable for performance excellence across the entire product stack and infrastructure.
  • Coverage spans frontend, APIs, backends, databases, caching, messaging, cloud infrastructure, observability integration, and agentic AI systems — end-to-end performance ownership.
  • Expected to set standards, influence architecture decisions and drive performance investments across engineering organization with authority but without formal control over all teams.
  • People-management role with responsibility for building and developing the Performance Engineering team (4-6+ people) across domain specialties.
  • Directly accountable for measurable improvements in product performance, customer experience and operational efficiency; performance impact is quantified and reported to leadership.
  • Required skills and experience
  • Nice to have
  • Experience in a high-scale SaaS, cloud platform, or enterprise software company with significant performance and cost optimization challenges.
  • Demonstrated track record of cost optimization initiatives; experience reducing infrastructure spend by 20%+ while maintaining or improving performance.
  • Deep expertise in specific performance domains: edge computing, database optimization, distributed systems optimization, microservices performance.
  • Experience optimizing AI/ML inference pipelines, LLM serving, or agentic system performance at scale.
  • Experience working in fast-growing organizations where product velocity and operational efficiency are critical competitive advantages.
  • Published content or conference talks on performance engineering, systems optimization or scalability.
  • Qualifications
  • Core required qualifications
  • Demonstrated hands-on expertise designing and optimizing systems across the full stack: frontend to infrastructure.
  • Proven experience leading performance initiatives that delivered measurable business impact (latency improvements, cost reductions, customer experience gains).
  • Strong proficiency with performance profiling, APM tools, load testing and observability platforms.
  • Deep understanding of systems design trade-offs: latency vs. throughput, consistency vs. performance, feature richness vs. simplicity.
  • Experience mentoring and developing technical talent; demonstrated leadership in building high-performing teams.
  • Strong communication skills; ability to explain performance concepts and trade-offs to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders.
  • Comfort working with cloud infrastructure, container orchestration and cost management; understanding of cloud architecture patterns.
  • Preferred qualifications
  • 10+ years of software engineering experience with 7+ years in performance engineering, systems optimization or platform engineering roles.
  • Track record of transforming engineering cultures toward performance-first thinking; demonstrated ability to drive organizational change around performance priorities.
  • Experience optimizing large-scale distributed systems; deep expertise in database optimization, caching architectures or microservices performance.
  • Demonstrated success leading cost optimization initiatives, including infrastructure spend reduction and operational efficiency improvements.
  • Experience with emerging technology performance challenges: AI/ML inference, generative AI systems, agentic architectures, real-time data processing.
  • Published technical content, open-source contributions, or thought leadership in performance engineering and systems optimization.

Nice to have

  • Experience in a high-scale SaaS, cloud platform, or enterprise software company with significant performance and cost optimization challenges.
  • Demonstrated track record of cost optimization initiatives; experience reducing infrastructure spend by 20%+ while maintaining or improving performance.
  • Deep expertise in specific performance domains: edge computing, database optimization, distributed systems optimization, microservices performance.
  • Experience optimizing AI/ML inference pipelines, LLM serving, or agentic system performance at scale.
  • Experience working in fast-growing organizations where product velocity and operational efficiency are critical competitive advantages.
  • Published content or conference talks on performance engineering, systems optimization or scalability.

Preferred qualifications

  • 10+ years of software engineering experience with 7+ years in performance engineering, systems optimization or platform engineering roles.
  • Track record of transforming engineering cultures toward performance-first thinking; demonstrated ability to drive organizational change around performance priorities.
  • Experience optimizing large-scale distributed systems; deep expertise in database optimization, caching architectures or microservices performance.
  • Demonstrated success leading cost optimization initiatives, including infrastructure spend reduction and operational efficiency improvements.
  • Experience with emerging technology performance challenges: AI/ML inference, generative AI systems, agentic architectures, real-time data processing.
  • Published technical content, open-source contributions, or thought leadership in performance engineering and systems optimization.
  • We embrace flexibility and hybrid work opportunities to support diverse needs and lifestyles, while also valuing inclusive workplace experiences. By fostering a sense of community, we drive innovation, strengthen connections, and nurture belonging. Our commitment ensures you can work in a way that suits you best, while also engaging with colleagues to share ideas and build meaningful relationships.
  • IFS is a billion-dollar revenue company with 7000+ employees on all continents. Our leading AI technology is the backbone of our award-winning enterprise software solutions, enabling our customers to be their best when it really matters–at the Moment of ServiceTM. Our commitment to internal AI adoption has allowed us to stay at the forefront of technological advancements, ensuring our colleagues can unlock their creativity and productivity, and our solutions are always cutting-edge.
  • At IFS, we’re flexible, we’re innovative, and we’re focused not only on how we can engage with our customers but on how we can make a real change and have a worldwide impact. We help solve some of society’s greatest challenges, fostering a better future through our agility, collaboration, and trust.
  • We celebrate diversity and understand our responsibility to reflect the diverse world we work in. We are committed to promoting an inclusive workforce that fully represents the many different cultures, backgrounds, and viewpoints of our customers, our partners, and our communities. As a truly international company serving people from around the globe, we realize that our success is tantamount to the respect we have for those different points of view.
  • By joining our team, you will have the opportunity to be part of a global, diverse environment; you will be joining a winning team with a commitment to sustainability; and a company where we get things done so that you can make a positive impact on the world.
  • We’re looking for innovative and original thinkers to work in an environment where you can #MakeYourMoment so that we can help others make theirs. With the power of our AI-driven solutions, we empower our team to change the status quo and make a real difference.
  • If you want to change the status quo, we’ll help you make your moment. Join Team Purple. Join IFS.

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