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Kizen · 1 month ago

Principal Platform Performance Engineer

Austin, Texas, United States

Full-time

Onsite

Lead/Staff

$180K/yr - $230K/yr

8+ years exp

Kizen is a fast-growing company that builds technology to make AI work for people. The Principal Platform Performance Engineer will be responsible for driving performance and scaling efforts, conducting load and stress testing, and providing data-driven recommendations to enhance the platform's reliability and efficiency.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)Big DataCRMMarketing AutomationSales Automation

Growth Opportunities

Responsibilities

Run load/stress tests to discover performance bottlenecks in Python services, PostgreSQL, Kafka, ClickHouse and distributed components

Investigate and diagnose the causes of performance issues and scaling limits - including indexing issues, lock contention, database tuning, etc

Monitor and maintain production logs and metrics related to scaling and performance

Produce concise engineering briefs with measurement-backed recommendations

Implement quick wins like index improvements, configuration changes and query optimizations directly

Qualification

PostgreSQL expertisePython applicationsLoad/stress testingKubernetesHelmKafka experienceCommunication skills

Required

BA/BS or higher in Computer Science/Engineering or equivalent professional experience

8+ years experience working on distributed cloud applications (AWS preferred)

Deep PostgreSQL expertise: sharding, query plans and optimization, indexing, partitioning, bloat, TOAST, storage tuning

5+ Years of experience with complex Python applications (Django preferred), including profiling and optimization techniques

Ability to design and run realistic load/stress/performance tests and produce detailed reports with actionable recommendations

Experience with Kubernetes and Helm, understanding of containerization, resource tuning, debugging and optimizing distributed systems

Experience with Kafka (consumer groups, rebalancing strategies, partitioning algorithms, failure modes, estimating latency/throughput, tuning configuration)

Strong communication skills: clear performance briefs, risk analysis, architectural impact summaries