Manager - Performance Engineering and Quality Assurance

Costco IT is responsible for the technical future of Costco Wholesale, the third largest retailer in the world with wholesale operations in fourteen countries. Despite our size and explosive international expansion, we continue to provide a family, employee centric atmosphere in which our employees thrive and succeed.

This is an environment unlike anything in the high-tech world and the secret of Costco's success is its culture. The value Costco puts on its employees is well documented in articles from a variety of publishers including Bloomberg and Forbes. Our employees and our members come FIRST. Costco is well known for its generosity and community service and has won many awards for its philanthropy. The company joins with its employees to take an active role in volunteering by sponsoring many opportunities to help others.

Come join the Costco Wholesale IT family. Costco IT is a dynamic, fast-paced environment, working through exciting transformation efforts. We are building the next generation retail environment where you will be surrounded by dedicated and highly professional employees.

As a member of the IT Management Team, you are responsible for managing, developing, and leading a team of employees. Your role includes leading the specific functional responsibilities of your team, which involves overseeing team performance and deliverables. However, your role as a leader within our organization requires more than the management of resources and day-to-day operations. As a steward of the company, you are charged with the development and execution of your team's strategic vision and plan, and ensuring that your team's actions align with the larger goals of the company and the IT Division.

We are seeking an IT professional to lead our Performance Engineering and Quality Assurance function. This role is pivotal in driving our strategic vision to build a unified, resilient, and proactive IT ecosystem. The Manager in this role will serve as a key partner to our Engineering and Operations teams, embedding a culture of quality and performance from the earliest stages of development. This Manager's expertise will be critical in ensuring our global IT services are scalable, reliable, and capable of supporting our rapid business growth. This is not just a reactive role; it is a forward-looking position focused on predictability and continuous improvement.

The Manager will be instrumental in the proactive identification of performance bottlenecks and potential points of failure before they can impact services. By designing and implementing a robust performance and stress testing practice, you will ensure our critical systems can handle peak loads and unexpected traffic spikes. You'll leverage modern AIOps and automation tools to streamline these testing efforts and provide actionable insights, ensuring a seamless experience for our members and business.

As the primary conduit between your employees and upper leadership, your role in communicating and modeling the values and guiding principles of our company culture is of vital importance. All members of IT Management should strive to consciously and consistently foster a culture of engagement, trust, and "open door" communication.

If you want to be a part of one of the worldwide BEST companies "to work for", simply apply and let your career be reimagined.

ROLE

INTEGRITY: When achieving benchmarks and goals, use methods/strategies that are consistent with the Code of Ethics and the Standard of Ethics for Managers and Supervisors. Always leads by example. Appropriately handles employee concerns and follows through to resolution.

MEMBER SERVICE: Provides and ensures staff provides an exceptional member experience.

ADMINISTRATION: Ensures proper department coverage (writing schedule and break aids if needed). Understands department budget, able to research and explain budget variances.

MANAGING PERFORMANCE: Coaches and mentors' employees to provide support and guidance. Has regular open and honest conversations with employees to discuss work performance and career development. Identifies learning opportunities to strengthen employee knowledge, skill, and ability.

COMMUNICATION: Regularly shares information with employees via meetings and one-on-one conversations. Successfully navigates difficult conversations with employees, members, and suppliers. Listens, expresses empathy, and adapts to get points across. Addresses issues immediately to ensure a timely resolution and to avoid escalating the situation. Consistently demonstrates business knowledge during interactions with senior management.

SELF-MANAGEMENT: Demonstrates sound judgment, taking a partner when necessary. Ability to maintain self-control in the face of hostility or provocation or in intense, hectic situations.

INCLUSION: Encourages different approaches and ideas to work and to accomplish goals. Seeks employee input. Takes the time to get to know or reach out to candidates who show potential that may not come forward on their own.

COMPLIANCE AND SAFETY: Takes measures to ensure employee and member information is kept confidential and adheres to IS security policy.

Performance Engineering: Leads the design and implementation of performance testing strategies, including load, stress, and endurance testing, for critical business applications.

Quality Assurance: Establishes and enforces quality standards and best practices throughout the software development lifecycle, from code check-in to production release.

Incident Prevention: Partners with development and operations teams to identify and address performance bottlenecks and potential points of failure before they can impact services.

Tooling & Automation: Selects, implements, and manages performance and QA tools. Drives automation to streamline testing, monitoring, and remediation efforts.

Mentorship & Collaboration: Mentors' Junior Engineers and collaborates with cross-functional teams to embed performance and quality principles into every stage of development.

Post-Mortem Analysis: Participates in post-mortems for major incidents, focusing on identifying performance-related root causes and recommending preventative actions.

Creates, communicates, and maintains strategy for Costco.

Leads a team that is able to balance a strategic approach to Costco's eCommerce needs with IT initiatives through prioritization and resource allocation.

This is a full-time management/leadership position (45 hours per week).
Required:

Proven experience (7 years) in a dedicated performance Engineering, Quality Assurance, or Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) role within a large-scale, enterprise environment, preferably in a top-tier global retailer.

Demonstrated history of designing and executing comprehensive performance strategies that have measurably improved system stability and a proven track record of preventing and mitigating major incidents.

Proven experience managing or leading a team of Performance Engineers or Quality Assurance professionals.

Demonstrated ability to lead and mentor cross-functional teams, fostering a culture of quality and shared accountability.

Experience presenting complex technical information and strategic recommendations to Senior Leadership

Deep, hands-on proficiency with a variety of performance testing tools, such as LoadRunner, JMeter, Gatling, or similar open-source and commercial solutions.

Senior-level knowledge of observability platforms, including Dynatrace, Splunk, Prometheus, or other APM/log management tools, to analyze system behavior, diagnose complex issues, and pinpoint root causes in distributed systems.

Solid understanding of cloud computing principles and experience with managing and optimizing performance in multi-cloud environments (e.g., Azure, Google Cloud Platform).

Practical experience with containerization and orchestration technologies, including Docker and Kubernetes, to ensure performance and scalability of modern applications.

SDLC Integration: Strong grasp of modern software development methodologies like Agile and DevOps, with a focus on integrating performance and quality practices into every stage of the development lifecycle.

Incident Management: Experience with formal incident management processes and conducting post-mortems to drive continuous learning and improvement.

Exceptional ability to analyze complex data sets, logs, and metrics to diagnose highly technical performance issues in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment

Strong verbal and written communication skills with a demonstrated ability to articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences

HIPAA Training and Supervisors Orientation (within 30 days of hire); Leadership Development 101 (within one year); Costco Pay Policies (within 90 days of promotion).
Recommended:

Experience with agentic AI and machine learning for AIOps, predictive analysis, and automated remediation.

Proficient in Google Workspace applications, including Sheets, Docs, Slides, and Gmail.

Required Documents

Cover Letter

Resume

California applicants, please click here to review the Costco Applicant Privacy Notice.

Pay Range: $137,000 - $200,000, Bonus and Restricted Stock Unit (RSU) eligible

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off, health benefits - medical/dental/vision/hearing aid/pharmacy/behavioral health/employee assistance, health care reimbursement account, dependent care assistance plan, short-term disability and long-term disability insurance, AD&D insurance, life insurance, 401(k), stock purchase plan to eligible employees.

Costco is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. Costco is an equal opportunity employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or any other legally protected status. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request to

If hired, you will be required to provide proof of authorization to work in the United States. Applicants and employees for this position will not be sponsored for work authorization, including, but not limited to H1-B visas.