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Here at Appian, our values of Intensity and Excellence define who we are. We set high standards and live up to them, ensuring that everything we do is done with care and quality. We approach every challenge with ambition and commitment, holding ourselves and each other accountable to achieve the best results. When you join Appian, you’ll be part of a passionate team dedicated to accomplishing hard things, together.
Overview:
At Appian, we’re not only about building awesome software, but also about growing our culture of passion, energy, and innovation—great people, great software! As a performance-focused Software Engineer, your mission will be to tackle our most challenging technical problems and build the tools required to solve complex performance bottlenecks. You will work alongside brilliant engineers to ensure our real-time, distributed platform operates with maximum speed, stability, and scale.
Team Description:
The Performance Engineering team sits at the vital intersection of core software development and infrastructure reliability. We are a squad of builders dedicated to keeping Appian fast and resilient under high-volume enterprise loads. We don't just fix slow code; we construct custom performance tooling, design automated testing frameworks, and maintain the deep observability systems that keep our platform running seamlessly.
In this role, you will:
- Engine Custom Tooling: Build custom internal tools, automation scripts, and diagnostic software to identify, isolate, and eliminate complex platform bottlenecks.
- Automate Performance Testing: Create and expand libraries, frameworks, and infrastructure to enable continuous automated performance and load testing across the platform.
- Drive Deep Observability: Leverage modern observability stacks (Prometheus, OpenTelemetry, Loki, Grafana, ElasticSearch, and Kubernetes) to monitor, trace, and optimize real-time system behavior.
- Debug & Rapidly Respond: Act as a critical responder for complex customer performance investigations and production issues, conducting root-cause analysis to prevent recurrence.
- Optimize Core Architecture: Utilize deep JVM knowledge and Linux fundamentals to profile runtime performance, tune application servers, and optimize database queries.
- Collaborate in Agile Squads: Partner closely with cross-functional scrum teams to deliver simple, elegant, and highly performant solutions to multi-layered technical challenges.
The Ideal Candidate:
- Systems & Performance Obsessed: You thrive on solving labyrinthine problems within large, high-performance distributed systems, with a natural curiosity for low-level platform behaviors.
- Culture & Builder Mindset: You bring energy, passion, and technical rigor to your team, taking immense pride in building tools that make everyone else's code run faster.
- Proactive Problem Solver: You prefer building long-term automated preventions over repeatedly applying short-term band-aids to recurring system issues.
Basic Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field
- 4+ years of professional experience building, delivering, and optimizing software applications.
- Proven experience programming in Java, Python, or other interpreted/compiled languages (e.g., C/C++).
- Solid foundation in Linux system fundamentals (threading, memory management, context switching) and shell scripting.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Deep technical knowledge of the JVM, including Garbage Collection tuning, heap dump analysis, and Java application servers (Tomcat, Spring).
- Hands-on experience with cloud-native monitoring and tracing tools (OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, ElasticSearch) and load-testing tools (e.g., Locust).
- Experience with modern CI/CD pipelines, containerization, and orchestration technologies (GitLab, Jenkins, Docker, Kubernetes).
- Proven track record in rapid-response incident management and production-level debugging.
The base salary range represents a good faith and reasonable estimate of the range at the time of posting. Actual compensation will be dependent on a number of factors including, but not limited to, the candidate’s relevant work experience, qualifications, internal peer equity, and market and business conditions that exist when extending an offer. A discretionary bonus may be awarded in recognition of individual and company performance.
In addition, Appian provides generous benefits offerings that include a 401(k) plan with company match, flexible time off, paid parental leave, medical, dental, and vision plans, life insurance, disability insurance, wellness programs, flexible spending accounts, health savings account contributions, an employee referral bonus program, and learning and development resources. Certain positions may be eligible for equity awards.
Pay and benefits are subject to change at any time, consistent with the terms of any applicable compensation, commission, bonus, or benefit plans.
Tools and Resources
- Training and Development: During onboarding, we focus on equipping new hires with the skills and knowledge for success through department-specific training. Continuous learning is a central focus at Appian, with dedicated mentorship and the First-Friend program being widely utilized resources for new hires.
- Growth Opportunities: Appian provides a diverse array of growth and development opportunities, including our leadership program tailored for new and aspiring managers, a comprehensive library of specialized department training through Appian University, skills based training, and tuition reimbursement for those aiming to advance their education. This commitment ensures that employees have access to a holistic range of development opportunities.
- Community: We’ll immerse you into our community rooted in respect starting on day one. Appian fosters inclusivity through our 8 employee-led affinity groups. These groups help employees build stronger internal and external networks by planning social, educational, and outreach activities to connect with Appianites and larger initiatives throughout the company.
Benefits
Appian offers a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your health, wellbeing, and financial future. Benefits may include health coverage, Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with free mental health support, life and disability insurance, an Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP), a retirement/pension plan, wellness dollars, tuition reimbursement, family-forming benefits and more. Benefits vary by country—please ask your Talent Acquisition contact for details specific to the location you are applying to.
About Appian
Appian provides AI automation for the most important business processes at the world’s largest organizations. Our platform is known for its unique power, reliability, and scale. We’ve been automating processes for more than 25 years and understand enterprise operations like no one else. For more information, visit appian.com.
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Appian is an equal opportunity employer that strives to attract and retain the best talent. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.
Appian provides reasonable accommodations to applicants in accordance with all applicable laws. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please contact us by email at [email protected]. Please note that only inquiries concerning a request for reasonable accommodation will be responded to from this email address.
Appian's Applicant & Candidate Privacy Notice
Skills Required
- 4+ years of experience building and delivering software applications
- Deep knowledge of the JVM, including garbage collection and heap dump analysis
- Experience with Java, application server technologies such as Tomcat and Spring, and databases
- Expertise in Linux system fundamentals and Linux basics
- Experience with Java, Python, and/or other interpreted languages; C or C++ considered
- Passion for performance optimization and solving complex performance problems
- Experience with CI/CD, test automation, GitLab, Jenkins, Docker, and Kubernetes or infrastructure
- Experience with monitoring, debugging, observability, and tracing tools, including Locust
- Ability to handle production issue debugging and rapid response team scenarios
- Bachelor of Science in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent years of experience writing code
- Experience building and delivering software applications
Appian Corporation Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Appian Corporation and has not been reviewed or approved by Appian Corporation.
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Healthcare Strength — Health coverage is described as fully employer-paid for medical with dental and vision included, alongside mental health support such as no-cost therapy/coaching and Headspace. Feedback suggests care navigation and wellness reimbursements further strengthen day-to-day healthcare access.
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Parental & Family Support — Family support includes 12 weeks paid parental leave for all parents plus 4 weeks recovery for birth mothers, a $5,000 family-forming stipend, and backup care via Bright Horizons. These offerings are portrayed as comprehensive and supportive of different family paths.
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Affordable Benefits — Medical premiums are covered 100% by the employer in the U.S., reducing out-of-pocket costs for core coverage. HSA and FSA options and other tax-advantaged accounts add to affordability for routine and dependent care needs.
Appian Corporation Insights
What We Do
Appian helps organizations build apps and workflows rapidly, with a low-code automation platform. Combining people, technologies, and data in a single workflow, Appian can help companies maximize their resources and improve business results. Many of the world’s largest organizations use Appian applications to improve customer experience, achieve operational excellence, and simplify global risk management and compliance.
Why Work With Us
Appian was founded on the belief that talented and passionate people, given the power and autonomy to excel, will deliver amazing impact. We have worked thoughtfully to create an inclusive, agile and collaborative work environment where employees feel challenged, and all voices are heard.
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