Joshua Wallgren
Manager / System Architect - Performance Engineering
Asheville,US
Summary
Accomplished Performance Engineer / Technical Architect offering 24 years' experience in comprehensive design and development of Performance Test infrastructure and architecture for software projects at Pearson Education and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Benefits Administration. Seasoned Engineering Manager adept at seamlessly integrating project technical aspects and making information relatable to non-technical personnel. Lead designer and curator of the vast Performance Testing services solution for VBA. Attentive collaborator and communicator from project conception to completion. Creative in devising solutions to improve business operations and meet clients' technical needs. Proven leader with exceptional analytical capabilities, eager to apply background in engineering to augment your organization's Information Technology services and solutions. Holds active T4 security clearance.
Overview
27
27
years of professional experience
Work History
Project Manager - Performance Engineering
Veterans Benefits Administration - Booz Allen Hamilton
08.2023 - Current
- Managing a Performance Test team of 7 engineers (6 testers, 1 DBA), whose testing solutions and utilities span a board spectrum of industry leading tooling, including Jira, Jenkins, GitHub, LoadRunner, Python, Sharepoint, and PowerBI.
- Lead designer of custom On-Premise and Cloud (AWS) test emulations, with scenarios covering hardware and software capacity projections, system resiliency, node failover, system endurance, and batch.
- Monitors daily Production volumetric and performance data using tools like Dynatrace, AppDynamics, Splunk, CloudWatch and Grafana. Ensures the most prod-like emulations are built and tested for monthly performance test cycles and scenarios.
- Collaborates closely with cross-functional teams to ensure seamless communication and information sharing throughout project lifecycles.
- Facilitates strong team collaboration through effective meeting management, open communication channels, and timely resolution of conflicts or issues.
- Monitors project performance to identify areas of improvement and make adjustments.
Manager Performance Engineering
Pearson
05.2022 - 07.2023
- Gathered and defined business and functional requirements for each program.
- Expanded cross-functional organizational capacity by collaborating across departments on priorities, functions and common goals.
- Reviewed scalability, performance and load balancing of each application.
- Conducted load, stress and endurance tests using jMeter and LoadRunner to simulate realistic user activities.
- Used monitoring tools like CloudWatch and NewRelic on frequent basis.
- Coordinated and monitored work of co-located and remote teams.
- Reviewed clients' overall app and infrastructure estate, business priorities and success criteria to design transformation plans.
- Monitored and tested application performance to identify potential bottlenecks, develop solutions and collaborate with developers on solution implementation.
- Maximized performance by monitoring daily activities and mentoring team members.
System Architect - Performance Engineering
Veterans Benefits Administration - Insignia
02.2004 - 05.2022
- Monitored and tested application performance to identify potential bottlenecks, develop solutions, and collaborate with developers on solution implementation
- Analysis of Veteran claims processing systems to model production usage patterns/capacities and identify potential performance bottlenecks
- Creation of load and stress test scripts using various protocols (Tuxedo, HTTP/HTML, Web-Services and Oracle 2-tier) of the MicroFocus Performance Test Suite to simulate the peak-hour of the peak-day production usage levels
- Creation of test suites to establish baseline performance, as well as iterative load and stress tests
- Collection and analysis of production metrics to insure accurate workflow designs
- Creation and maintenance of complex data-staging scripts and suites used to generate large data sets of varying content and complexity
- Analysis of test results to recommend DB, OS and application tuning opportunities
- Management of monthly upgrades to the entire Performance Test suite, incorporating the to-be deployed Production application suite, functionality, user types and transaction rates
- Participated in all phases of system development life cycle, from requirements analysis through system implementation
- Provided technical leadership to team members during system design.
- Worked closely with all stakeholders to determine planning, implementation and integration of system-oriented projects.
Senior Software Quality Assurance Engineer
Veterans Benefit Administration - Northrop Grumman
06.2002 - 02.2004
- Planned and implemented initiatives for test script automation, process improvement, technical requirements gathering, change management and training others in all aspects of Software Quality Assurance.
- Incorporated the Rational Unified Process testing methodology to make significant contributions to process improvement efforts and overall product quality
- Lead the bi-monthly release testing efforts including execution of regression test suites, requirements gathering, automated script creation and maintenance, defect tracking, and updates to system design documentation
Software Quality Assurance Engineer
NowDocs, Inc.
11.2000 - 11.2001
- Managed weekly releases for this Web-based document management solutions and services company (deploying builds, updating DB schemas, configuring web-servers)
- Utilized the Rational Unified Process of testing solutions (defect tracking, execution of automation scripts, and created test cases for enhancements and unscripted areas of site)
- Participated in product review meetings with development and marketing teams to maximize product-cycle efficiency, quality assurance and overall process improvement
Software Quality Assurance Engineer
Globeset, Inc.
08.1999 - 11.2000
- Developed test plans for B2B and B2C payment infrastructures
- Installed and configured Secure Electronic Transaction products (wallets) in various operating systems and databases
- Executed automated and manual integration, system, regression, and performance tests
- Developed test scripts used to exercise SDKs, internal libraries, and exposed APIs
- Researched market requirements to advise developers of product direction and cycle
Education
Bachelor of Science - Mining Engineering, Computer Science
Columbia University in The City of New York
New York, NY05.1997
Skills
Project management
Project planning
Process improvement
Software Quality assurance
Test System design
Root Cause Analysis
Automation
LoadRunner
Scripting skills
C
Python
Work Availability
monday
tuesday
wednesday
thursday
friday
saturday
sunday
morning
afternoon
evening
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Timeline
Project Manager - Performance Engineering
Veterans Benefits Administration - Booz Allen Hamilton
08.2023 - Current
Manager Performance Engineering
Pearson
05.2022 - 07.2023
System Architect - Performance Engineering
Veterans Benefits Administration - Insignia
02.2004 - 05.2022
Senior Software Quality Assurance Engineer
Veterans Benefit Administration - Northrop Grumman
06.2002 - 02.2004
Software Quality Assurance Engineer
NowDocs, Inc.
11.2000 - 11.2001
Software Quality Assurance Engineer
Globeset, Inc.
08.1999 - 11.2000
Bachelor of Science - Mining Engineering, Computer Science
Columbia University in The City of New York