{"id":1489,"date":"2022-06-27T11:32:32","date_gmt":"2022-06-27T15:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/192.168.1.39\/?p=1489"},"modified":"2024-06-04T13:49:31","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T13:49:31","slug":"performance-engineer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smcllc.smcwpsites.com\/blog\/performance-engineer\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Became a Performance Engineer"},"content":{"rendered":"

My career as a performance engineer started in a strange way. In 1998, I worked at Deloitte & Touche on the outskirts of Nashville. I had just been assigned to a new development team that built the firm’s internal time and expense tracking software. Prior to this I had a technical support background. I spent the first part of my career focused on the end of the software development lifecycle. Now I was positioned closer to the beginning. I was in \u201cQA\u201d, but didn\u2019t fully understand what that meant. I was in this new role and suddenly designated as \u201cthe guy who is going to run that new load testing software\u201d. I had no clue what it was. My manager pointed across the room. There was an intimidating new computer in the corner. This would be my responsibility.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My manager said, \u201cDon\u2019t worry we are sending you to training in a week. In the meantime, we are in the process of running a load test using some external consultants. Why don\u2019t you go talk to them and see if you can pick up any pointers that might help you get started before the training class begins?\u201d What happened next is where fate and spite completely aligned.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Conversation<\/span><\/h2>\n

I\u2019ll never forget the conversation between my 28-year-old self, approaching the consultant in an attempt to gain knowledge. He said, \u201cScott, I don\u2019t want to put a glass ceiling on you, buddy – but this isn\u2019t something you can do with your background. You need to leave this to the professionals and stay out of our way.\u201d Suddenly, I\u2019m in 8th grade Algebra getting hit in the head with an eraser – thrown by the teacher – telling me I was too lazy to learn! (Yes this actually happened).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I snapped back to the present, and spoke back in a calm but firm voice. I said, \u201cFrom this day forward, I am dedicating my entire career to performance testing, and the next time you see me, I will know more about this than you.\u201d Then I went to my manager and shared this conversation. She said, \u201cOh don\u2019t pay them any mind. They are just upset we aren\u2019t going to keep paying them $250 an hour to do this much longer. We are bringing this in house.\u201d Suddenly, a ray of light from heaven came down. I was enlightened and illuminated! I had a new calling in life. I was going to be a consultant who knew how to do load testing!!! I never did make those kinds of rates, but I digress\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

A consultant working with us on the project, the honorable Vincent McBurney <\/span>https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/vmcburney\/<\/span><\/a>, was kind enough to sit down and show me everything he knew about LoadRunner version 4.5 and database virtual users. It went completely over my head and by the 10th line of C code, my eyes were rolling in the back of my head and I was about to pass out. I thought to myself, \u201cmaybe I can\u2019t do this.\u201d I tried reading the manuals and clicking around with the LoadRunner GUI, but it wasn\u2019t doing much good.<\/span><\/p>\n

Getting Trained As A Performance Engineer<\/span><\/h2>\n

Eventually, as my manager promised, I was sent to a formal training class. I traveled to Atlanta, GA where TBI (which later became Orasi) was the regional Mercury partner. They had a week-long class, and the amazing Ken Willet taught me in my first class. <\/span>https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/ken-willett\/<\/span><\/a>. Later on I would take additional training classes from the legendary Phil Hardman <\/span>https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/phil-hardman-43b20116\/<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once I got the hang of it through a lot of hands on working with it, load testing became something I was good at and enjoyed. There\u2019s something about seeing the tears of a developer as their application goes down in flames. It always gives me that warm, Christmas feeling all over.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t stopped learning. I still have to ask for help figuring things out like everyone else. I don\u2019t have all the answers. It\u2019s one reason I like to have a large network of contacts – in hopes someone has an answer I don\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Takeaway To Becoming A Performance Engineer<\/span><\/h2>\n

My career in performance engineering wasn\u2019t something that was planned, and it was very much a situation where I was designated to fill a blank space in the organization. With the right motivation, it was something I learned to have a passion for. While my career was originally born out of dogged determination to prove someone wrong about my abilities, the financial motivation wasn\u2019t a bad side effect. This has turned out to be one of the best decisions in my professional career.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

An even better feeling than destroying the life of a bad developer (not the good ones, the jerks – you know who I am talking about) – is the one I get when I see people I have trained over the years who are still doing it or who have made a nice career path for themselves with the skills they gained learning from me or working with me. It\u2019s great to hear someone say they read a \u201chow to\u201d article I shared and it helped them get through a project. It\u2019s really great to meet people in person I have never met who feel they have known me for years (sometimes decades). I love meeting and talking to them and listening to their stories as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s your story? How did you get to be a performance engineer?<\/span><\/p>\n

Make sure to check out this blog<\/a> about my first experience with load testing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott Moore tells the story of how he became a performance engineer and fell in love with making software better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1512,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","content-type":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,68],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smcllc.smcwpsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smcllc.smcwpsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smcllc.smcwpsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smcllc.smcwpsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smcllc.smcwpsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/smcllc.smcwpsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smcllc.smcwpsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smcllc.smcwpsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smcllc.smcwpsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smcllc.smcwpsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}