Principal Software Development Engineer in Test (Performance & Bare-Metal)

Akamai; United States; Hybrid; USD 169,000 - 305,000; Full time

Job summary

Akamai is seeking a Principal Software Development Engineer in Test to lead test strategy for hypervisor behavior and VM performance across the IaaS platform. You will design reproducible environments using containers to emulate bare-metal VM conditions and collaborate with product and SRE to define SLOs and safe deployment practices.

You will write test harnesses in Go, Python, and Perl, mentor SDETs, and drive CI/CD quality gates with performance benchmarks and robust data analysis.

Qualifications

• 12 years in testing, including performance testing and systems-level testing.
• Experience in KVM/QEMU/libvirt internals, VM-exits, and NUMA/cache effects on performance.
• Experience debugging across architectures (x86, ARM) on bare metal and emulated environments.
• Strong Linux fundamentals: scheduler, memory management, I/O subsystems, storage architectures, and block devices.
• Demonstrate statistical thinking: experimental design, baseline analysis, variance control, and stakeholder communication.
• Proficiency with Linux perf, VTune, eBPF, Bash, Jenkins, and SaltStack.

Responsibilities

• Define and own test strategy for hypervisor behavior, VM performance, and fleet-level quality gates; mentoring SDETs on statistical rigor and systems-level testing.
• Design reproducible test environments that emulate bare-metal VM conditions using containers, validating data integrity, without requiring physical hardware.
• Develop automated performance benchmarks with statistical baselines, change-point detection, and regression gating for CI/CD pipelines.
• Collaborating with product and SRE to define SLO measurement and validate deployment safety and rollback strategies.
• Writing test harnesses and performance analysis pipelines in Go, Python, and Perl.

Skills

Testing expertise

Performance testing

Systems engineering

Hypervisor platforms

Statistical thinking

Tools

KVM/QEMU/libvirt internals

Linux perf

VTune

eBPF

Bash

Jenkins

SaltStack

Job description

Do you want to help design and implement the next generation of cloud computing?

Do you want to help build the future of AI accelerating compute architectures across the Akamai Connected Cloud?

Join our Compute team!

Our team's mission is to accelerate innovation by making computing simple, scalable, accessible, and affordable for all. We provide the infrastructure and services that enable developers to build next-generation applications. We take ownership of the design and development of core compute interfaces, virtualization management, APIs, and low-level platform services.

Partner with the best

As a Principal Software Development Engineer in Test, you will own VM/fleet test strategy, performance quality gates, and hypervisor behavior validation across the IaaS platform.

As a Principal Software Development Engineer in Test, you will be responsible for:

• Defining and owning test strategy for hypervisor behavior, VM performance, and fleet-level quality gates; mentoring SDETs on statistical rigor and systems-level testing.
• Designing reproducible test environments that emulate bare-metal VM conditions using containers, validating data integrity, without requiring physical hardware.
• Developing automated performance benchmarks with statistical baselines, change-point detection, and regression gating for CI/CD pipelines.
• Collaborating with product and SRE to define SLO measurement and validate deployment safety and rollback strategies.
• Writing test harnesses and performance analysis pipelines in Go, Python, and Perl.

Do what you love

To be successful in this role you will:

• Have 12 years in testing, including performance testing, hypervisor platforms, and systems engineering or its equivalent
• Possess experience in KVM/QEMU/libvirt internals, VM-exits, and NUMA/cache effects on performance.
• Have experience in debug across architectures (x86, ARM) on bare metal and emulated environments, isolating failure root causes.
• Have good Linux fundamentals: scheduler, memory management, I/O subsystems, storage architectures, and block devices.
• Demonstrate statistical thinking: experimental design, baseline analysis, variance control, and stakeholder communication.
• Have proficiency in Linux perf, VTune, eBPF, Bash, Jenkins, and SaltStack.

About us

At Akamai, we make life better for billions of people, trillions of times a day. Whether you're streaming live events, scrolling social media, watching your favorite series, or managing your savings, we're the engine behind the scenes. We provide the world's most distributed platform from Cloud to Edge to help the giants of the digital world work faster and stay more secure, making the internet a better experience for everyone.

Our focus is simple:

Cloud and Edge: Running apps closer to users for instant performance.

Security: Neutralizing threats before they ever reach your data.

Content Delivery: Scaling the world's biggest moments without a glitch.

AI: Enabling our customers to build, secure, and scale AI apps on the world's most distributed cloud platform.

At Akamai, we don't just support the internet; we power and protect it, because behind every great digital experience is a massive hidden challenge. And we're the ones who solve it. When millions of people hit play or pay, Akamai ensures it just works.

Benefits at Akamai

We support your health, well-being, finances, and life beyond work. See our benefits.

FlexBase adapts to your job's needs

Akamai's FlexBase program is yet another way we show our commitment to providing employees with an exceptional workplace experience. It's not about telling employees where to work; it's about supporting employees to do their best work.

We trust our incredible employees to work in ways that suit them best: at home, in an office, or a combination of both.

Connect with us on social and see what life at Akamai is like!

Compensation

Akamai is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. For US based candidates only - the base salary for this position ranges from $169,300 - $304,700/year; a candidate’s salary is determined by various factors including, but not limited to, relevant work experience, skills, certifications and location. Compensation for candidates outside the US will vary. The compensation package may also include incentive compensation opportunities in the form of annual bonus or incentives, equity awards and an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP). Akamai provides industry-leading benefits including healthcare, 401K savings plan, company holidays, vacation (in the form of PTO), sick time, family friendly benefits including parental leave and an employee assistance program including a focus on mental and financial wellness; Eligibility requirements apply.