Ulta Beauty · 8 hours ago
Lead IT Engineer Digital Performance
Bolingbrook, IL
Full-time
Onsite
Lead/Staff
$103K/yr - $155K/yr
8+ years expUlta Beauty is the largest North American beauty retailer and a premier beauty destination. The Lead IT Engineer – Digital Performance is responsible for ensuring the performance, scalability, resilience, and cost efficiency of Ulta Beauty’s digital ecosystem, while providing technical leadership across performance engineering disciplines.
BeautyConsumer GoodsCosmeticsRetail
Responsibilities
Own performance outcomes across web, mobile, APIs, SaaS, microservices, cloud platforms, and AI-driven/agentic experiences
Define performance strategy, SLOs/SLIs, KPIs, and readiness criteria for all digital experiences
Lead capacity, scalability, resilience, and peak-readiness strategy—including holidays and major launch events
Drive shift-left performance engineering through design reviews, architecture assessments, and early workload modeling
Architect and implement performance engineering frameworks across the SDLC, including automated performance checks within CI/CD pipelines
Lead performance test planning, workload modeling, scenario design, environment strategy, and data strategy
Develop reusable performance test assets and automation using LoadRunner, JMeter, NeoLoad, CloudTest, and modern cloud-native tooling
Conduct detailed analysis of system, API, and mobile performance signals including latency, throughput, core web vitals, RUM metrics, microservices behaviors, and third‑party dependency impacts
Partner with SRE and Ops teams to establish observability dashboards, alert thresholds, and deep-dive diagnostics
Define performance validation frameworks for agentic and AI-driven interactions—covering multi-step journeys, decision loops, retries, fallbacks, and asynchronous flows
Build workload models for agentic use cases including burst traffic, fan‑out patterns, long‑running sessions, and async callbacks
Evaluate latency, concurrency, cost models, and dynamic execution paths for AI-enabled systems
Develop performance gates ensuring AI/agentic systems remain reliable, cost-efficient, and scalable
Serve as the performance engineering thought leader and primary point of accountability for all performance readiness activities
Partner cross-functionally with Engineering, Architecture, SRE, Infrastructure, and Product teams to embed performance into all phases of development
Provide hands-on leadership to onshore/offshore performance engineering teams
Communicate risks, findings, and recommendations clearly to technical and business stakeholders
Lead ongoing production performance monitoring, trend analysis, optimization, and incident support
Ensure systems remain peak-ready throughout the year with proactive scaling and tuning strategies
Standardize performance engineering processes, tools, best practices, and governance
Drive continuous improvement through innovation in cloud-native performance techniques, observability, and AI-driven analysis
Profile application performance using different workload models to understand performance concerns and to implement tuning as needed
Evaluate performance related patterns and trends
Drive performance engineering as an integral part of SDLC
Contribution to continuous improvement of performance testing standards and processes
Qualification
Required
Bachelor's degree in computer science, MIS/CIS or equivalent professional experience
Must have Performance Engineering and testing as the primary competency and comfortable to act as a hands-on lead and by managing a performance test team spread across onshore & offshore
Must have 8+ years of progressive performance testing experience in agile, waterfall and hybrid delivery models using load emulation tools like LoadRunner, JMeter, NeoLoad, CloudTest etc.…
Expert level proficiency in Estimation, NFR gathering, Test Plan, Workload models, Test Scenario Design, Test Environment setup, Test Data Setup, Test Execution, debugging and tuning the application bottlenecks and Defect Management covering complex end to end flows
Strong Performance Engineering experience with technologies like Java EE, Python, Micro Services, SQL, No-SQL, GCP, Apigee, Kafka, Docker and Kubernetes in developing automated testing frameworks, working with cloud platforms (GCP, Azure and AWS), and implementing automation solutions
Experience in performance testing of both on-prem and cloud solutions (GCP/Azure/AWS)
Experience in Performance Engineering concepts along with an ability to define performance monitoring requirements and alert thresholds using APM and Real User metrics tools like Dynatrace, NewRelic, Dynatrace RUM and Webpage Test
Understanding and experience with DevOps and CI/CD pipelines
Ability to perform root cause analysis by coordinating with the respective teams and bring issues to closure with acceptable resolutions in a timely manner
Ability to manage through conflicting priorities and tight deadlines, while maintaining quality deliverables across projects
Must be results oriented, and demonstrate a ‘can‐do' attitude with attention to detail and with excellent written, verbal, relationship-building and problem-solving skills
Flexibility of providing support during odd hours, weekends, and peak seasons
Minimal travel required (training/conferences)
Preferred
Performance testing experience in a retail domain covering systems like eCommerce / Web / Mobile, Order management & POS systems is highly desired
Benefits
Paid time off
Health
Dental
Vision
Life and disability benefits
Company
Ulta Beauty
Ulta Beauty is a beauty retailer that offers a wide range of products including cosmetics, fragrances, skincare, and hair care.
10001+ employees
H1B Sponsorship
Ulta Beauty has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2020 (9)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$266.3MKey Investors
Berkshire HathawayDimensional Fund Advisors
2024-08-14Post Ipo Equity· $266.3M
2016-10-11Post Ipo Equity
2007-10-25IPO
Leadership Team
Kecia Steelman
President & CEO
Chris Lialios
Senior Vice President Controller
Recent News
2026-02-04
Company data provided by crunchbase