Free Access No Registration Updated: 2026-06-01

Performance Test Engineer Career Market Report 2026

256 active jobs. 130 companies. Median salary $141K. Data from Greenhouse, Lever, Workday, Ashby, SmartRecruiters, Workable, and 14 additional ATS sources. Last computed: 2026-06-01.

256
Active Job Openings
130
Companies Hiring
$141K
Median Salary (US)
81%
With Salary Data

About This Report

The Performance Test Engineer market data on this page is updated daily from 800,000+ active job postings across 20 ATS platforms.

Greenhouse Lever Workday Ashby SmartRecruiters Workable + 14 more ATS sources

Salary: Extracted via NLP. Only USD $5K-$3M included. Skills: Named entity recognition, noise-filtered (generic soft skills excluded). Experience: Inferred from title + description. Coverage: 81% of positions include salary data.

Key Findings

Median salary: $141K in the US

Middle 50% of salaries range from $120K to $170K.

Remote roles pay 15% below the US national median

Remote positions in this field tend to be at companies with lower average pay scales, or reflect geographic salary adjustments.

AI/LLM is the most-demanded skill at 45%

SQL demand rose +15.4pp — fastest-growing skill

Nvidia leads hiring with 17 open positions

Biggest salary jump: Senior → Staff (+$25K, +17%)

Salary increase: +$25K · Sample: Senior → Staff

AI automation risk: low (score 30/100)

Score: 30/100 · AI/LLM demand: 85% of postings

Salary by Experience Level

LevelJobsP25MedianP90
Senior7$136K$145K$179K
Mid-Level4$120K$122K$148K
Staff3$145K$170K$200K

What jumps out

Senior → Staff: +$25K (17%) — the biggest single-step increase. The salary curve is back-loaded: the largest raises come at transitions where scope changes from executing tasks to owning outcomes, or from owning outcomes to shaping architecture across teams.

Salary by Country

CountryJobsMedianCurrency
United States13$141KUSD
Remote3$120KUSD

Work Mode

ModeShare
On-Site2.7%
Remote15.6%
Hybrid0.8%

~80% of postings do not specify work mode. Figures show only positions where it is explicitly stated.

Top Skills in Demand

AI/LLM
45%
Python
40%
Java
21%
Linux
21%
Quality Assurance
17%
Kubernetes
16%
AWS
16%
SQL
15%
CI/CD
14%
CUDA
13%
Azure
13%
PyTorch
12%

Skills on the Rise

SQL ↑+15.4ppR ↑+7.7ppQuality Assurance ↑+4.1pp

Declining in Demand

Scheduling ↓-10.4ppMicroservices ↓-9.7ppAI/LLM ↓-8.3ppPython ↓-5.9ppCUDA ↓-4.4pp

Top Companies Hiring

CompanyOpeningsShare
Nvidia176.6%
Usm93.5%
Krgtechnology72.7%
Generalmotors62.3%
Ag62.3%
brightvisiontechnologies62.3%
Wk52.0%
Veeva41.6%

Top Countries by Job Volume

CountryJobs
United States95
India25
Remote18
United Kingdom15
Poland7
Canada7
Costa Rica4
Israel3

Education Requirements

LevelSharePositions
Associate Degree54.8%114
Master's Degree16.8%35
Bachelor's Degree8.7%18
PhD / Doctorate5.8%12

Certifications

AWS Certified (1%)Kubernetes Certified (1%)

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