Performance Engineer - GraphQL Performance Engineering

Job Summary

The GraphQL Performance Engineering team at Marriott is dedicated to improving the digital experience for millions of guests worldwide while also enhancing the engineering experience for teams across Marriott. We achieve this by challenging the status quo and driving innovative approaches to deliver fast, reliable, and scalable digital solutions.

We are seeking a highly engaged and motivated Performance Engineer who is passionate about optimizing system performance, continuously improving their skills, and learning emerging technologies. The ideal candidate will have a strong hands-on background in performance engineering, test automation, and system optimization, along with exceptional communication and collaboration skills.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a technical performance expert within the GraphQL team, ensuring APIs are scalable, reliable, and efficient under high load.
• Conduct performance testing, profiling, benchmarking, and tuning of GraphQL services and their integrations with multiple channels, third party’s integrations and domain API teams.
• Collaborate closely with product, architecture, and engineering teams to design and implement solutions that improve end-to-end performance.
• Analyze production bottlenecks, scalability issues, and latency concerns, and provide actionable recommendations.
• Develop performance frameworks, monitoring strategies, and performance dashboards to proactively detect and prevent issues.
• Act as a bridge across teams, providing technical expertise, guidance, and solutions to performance-related challenges.
• Train and/or mentor other team members and peers as appropriate.
• Work liaising with multiple teams to steer projects from inception to successful delivery.
• Identify opportunities to enhance the service delivery processes.
• Perform complex quantitative and qualitative analyses for service delivery processes and projects.
• Facilitate achievement of expected deliverables and obligations of Services Providers.
• Validate completeness of requirements prior to Service Provider solutioning.
• Ensure all projects follow the defined development and business case processes.
• Ensure proper coordination with appropriate IT and vendor relations teams.
• Provide consultation for routine and complex systems development.
• Ensure early warning to the business stakeholder executives regarding degraded or missed service levels.
• Coordinate with Application Delivery and Infrastructure teams for deployment and production support activities.
• Follow all defined IT standards and processes and provide input for improvements to the appropriate process owners as needed.
• Maintain a proper balance between business and operational risk.
• Assess when risks need to be escalated to right channels.
• Follow the defined project management standards and processes.
• Validate that Service Providers develop and manage respective aspects of a project plan, including schedules, deliverables, and appropriate metrics.
• Make short term plans for the team to effectively utilize resources.
• Monitor Service Provider outcomes.
• Review estimates of work effort for client project provided by Service Providers for accuracy.
• Facilitate timely resolution of service delivery problems and minimize the impact to clients.

Candidate Profile

Education and Experience Required

• Self-motivated and results-driven, with a passion for learning and growth
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Proven track record of working with scalable, high-quality web applications
• Possess deep expertise in performance testing tools (e.g., NeoLoad, JMeter, Locust) and monitoring/observability platforms (e.g., Dynatrace, New Relic, Prometheus/Grafana).
• Strong skills in profiling, debugging, and tuning JVM- and Node.js-based services.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP) and containerized environments (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and integrating performance testing into DevOps workflows.
• Strong SQL and NoSQL database performance analysis (Redis, Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB, DynamoDB, etc.).
• Programming/scripting proficiency in Java, Node.js, Python, or Go for performance automation.
• AWS Solutions Architect or Developer certification
• Demonstrate strong analytical skills to identify root causes and performance trends.
• Communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Thrive in a collaborative environment while driving performance best practices across the organization.
• 8+ years’ working with large scale API projects

Nice to Have

• Experience with Chaos Engineering / Resilience testing.
• Knowledge of GraphQL federation, caching strategies, and distributed systems performance.
• Familiarity with APM tools and advanced logging/traceability frameworks (OpenTelemetry, Jaeger, Zipkin).

Management Competencies

• Leadership
• Communication
• Leading Through Vision and Values
• Managing Change
• Problem Solving and Decision Making
• Professional Demeanor
• Strategy Development
• Managing Execution
• Building a Successful Team
• Strategy Execution
• Driving for Results
• Building Relationships
• Customer Relationships
• Global Mindset
• Strategic Partnerships
• Generating Talent and Organizational Capability
• Developing Others
• Organizational Capability
• Learning and Applying Professional Expertise
• Continuous Learning
• Technical Acumen
• Business Acumen

Basic Competencies

• Basic Computer Skills
• Mathematical Reasoning
• Oral Comprehension
• Reading Comprehension
• Writing

Benefits

• 401(k) plan
• Stock purchase plan
• Discounts at Marriott properties
• Commuter benefits
• Employee assistance plan
• Childcare discounts
• Medical coverage
• Dental coverage
• Vision coverage
• Health care flexible spending account
• Dependent care flexible spending account
• Life insurance
• Disability insurance
• Accident insurance
• Adoption expense reimbursements
• Paid parental leave
• Paid sick leave
• Paid time off
• Holidays

Additional Information

Marriott HQ is committed to a hybrid work environment that enables associates to be connected. Headquarters-based positions are considered hybrid, for candidates within a commuting distance to Bethesda, MD; candidates outside of commuting distance to Bethesda, MD will be considered for Remote positions.

Marriott International is the world’s largest hotel company, with more brands, more hotels and more opportunities for associates to grow and succeed. Be where you can do your best work, begin your purpose, belong to an amazing global team, and become the best version of you.