GCP Performance Engineer

Cognizant; Parsippany-Troy Hills (NJ); Hybrid; USD 114,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance

Paid holidays plus Paid Time Off

401(k) plan and contributions

Long-term/Short-term Disability

Paid Parental Leave

Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Job summary

Cognizant is seeking a GCP Performance Engineer in Parsippany, NJ to monitor, analyze, and optimize performance across Google Cloud Platform environments. You will support performance testing, identify bottlenecks, and improve scalability and efficiency of cloud-native workloads.

Join a collaborative Cloud Infrastructure and Security team, with hybrid work and a focus on observability, tuning, and cost optimization. 5+ years of experience and strong Python skills are desirable.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in application and infrastructure performance engineering.
• Hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) services.
• Strong knowledge of BigQuery, AlloyDB, Compute Engine, and Pub/Sub.
• Experience analyzing performance metrics, resource utilization, and system bottlenecks.
• Proficiency in Python programming and performance optimization techniques.
• Experience with cloud monitoring, observability, and alerting tools.
• Understanding of performance testing methodologies, workload validation, and capacity planning.
• Experience troubleshooting distributed cloud applications and services.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Monitor application, database, and infrastructure performance across GCP environments.
• Analyze latency, throughput, resource utilization, and performance trends to identify optimization opportunities.
• Support performance testing, workload validation, and capacity planning activities.
• Optimize and tune BigQuery queries to improve execution efficiency and reduce processing costs.
• Monitor and improve AlloyDB database performance, including query tuning and resource optimization.
• Configure, maintain, and enhance Cloud Monitoring dashboards, alerts, and observability solutions.
• Investigate and resolve CPU, memory, disk, network, and application bottlenecks.
• Collaborate with development teams to optimize Python-based applications and cloud-native workloads.
• Monitor and optimize Pub/Sub messaging performance and throughput.
• Develop performance baselines, recommendations, and documentation to support continuous improvement.

Skills

Python programming

Performance analysis

Monitoring & observability

Communication skills

Tools

BigQuery

AlloyDB

Compute Engine

Pub/Sub

Google Cloud Operations Suite

Job description

About the role

As a GCP Performance Engineer, you will make an impact by monitoring, analyzing, and optimizing application and infrastructure performance across Google Cloud Platform environments. You will support performance testing initiatives, identify system bottlenecks, optimize cloud-native services, and work closely with development and operations teams to improve application scalability, reliability, and efficiency. You will be a valued member of the Cloud Infrastructure and Security team working collaboratively with the Senior Manager.

In this role, you will

• Monitor application, database, and infrastructure performance across GCP environments.
• Analyze latency, throughput, resource utilization, and performance trends to identify optimization opportunities.
• Support performance testing, workload validation, and capacity planning activities.
• Optimize and tune BigQuery queries to improve execution efficiency and reduce processing costs.
• Monitor and improve AlloyDB database performance, including query tuning and resource optimization.
• Configure, maintain, and enhance Cloud Monitoring dashboards, alerts, and observability solutions.
• Investigate and resolve CPU, memory, disk, network, and application bottlenecks.
• Collaborate with development teams to optimize Python-based applications and cloud-native workloads.
• Monitor and optimize Pub/Sub messaging performance and throughput.
• Develop performance baselines, recommendations, and documentation to support continuous improvement.

Work model

We believe hybrid work is the way forward as we strive to provide flexibility wherever possible. Based on this role’s business requirements, this is a hybrid position requiring 3 days a week in a client or Cognizant office in Parsippany, NJ. Regardless of your working arrangement, we are here to support a healthy work-life balance though our various wellbeing programs.

The working arrangements for this role are accurate as of the date of posting. This may change based on the project you’re engaged in, as well as business and client requirements. Rest assured; we will always be clear about role expectations.

What you need to have to be considered

• 5+ years of experience in application and infrastructure performance engineering.
• Hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) services.
• Strong knowledge of BigQuery, AlloyDB, Compute Engine, and Pub/Sub.
• Experience analyzing performance metrics, resource utilization, and system bottlenecks.
• Proficiency in Python programming and performance optimization techniques.
• Experience with cloud monitoring, observability, and alerting tools.
• Understanding of performance testing methodologies, workload validation, and capacity planning.
• Experience troubleshooting distributed cloud applications and services.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills.

These will help you stand out

• Experience with Google Cloud Operations Suite, formerly Stackdriver.
• Knowledge of cloud cost optimization and performance tuning best practices.
• Experience with automated performance testing frameworks and CI/CD pipelines.
• Familiarity with containerized environments, Kubernetes, and GKE.
• Experience supporting large-scale enterprise cloud transformation initiatives.
• Knowledge of database performance engineering across cloud platforms.

We’re excited to meet people who share our mission and can make an impact in a variety of ways. Think about your transferable experiences and unique skills that make you stand out.

Salary and Other Compensation

Applications will be accepted until October 5, 2026.

The annual salary for this position is between $114,000 - $130,000 USD depending on experience and other qualifications of the successful candidate. This position is also eligible for Cognizant’s discretionary annual incentive program, based on performance and subject to the terms of Cognizant’s applicable plans.

Benefits

• Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance
• Paid holidays plus Paid Time Off
• 401(k) plan and contributions
• Long-term/Short-term Disability
• Paid Parental Leave
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Disclaimer

The salary, other compensation, and benefits information is accurate as of the date of this posting. Cognizant reserves the right to modify this information at any time, subject to applicable law.

Please note, this role is not able to offer visa transfer or sponsorship now or in the future.