Performance Engineering Meetup - Warsaw Edition

Dive into real-world insights, best practices and hands-on strategies for optimizing software performance!

Overview

Performance Engineering is no longer just about running load tests.

It’s about understanding how systems really behave - under load, in production, across complex architectures - and using the right combination of data, observability, automation and AI to make better engineering decisions.

Event Overview

The Performance Engineering Meetup is coming to Warsaw, bringing together engineers who deal with these challenges every day.

After 2 years of successful editions in Kraków, we’re bringing the community to the capital.

Join professionals from leading companies for an evening of practical insights, real-world experiences and open conversations around Performance Engineering.

Expect hands-on case studies, lessons learned, technical deep dives and practical approaches - not textbook theory.

What’s waiting for you?

🔥 Real engineering stories

What worked, what failed, what surprised us - and what we learned from it.

📊 Performance beyond load testing
Observability, architecture, monitoring, troubleshooting, automation and modern performance practices.

🤖 AI & the future of Performance Engineering
How AI is starting to change the way we build, analyze and improve performance tests and engineering workflows.

🧠 Knowledge you can actually use
Ideas, techniques and approaches you can take back to your own projects.

🤝 A community, not just presentations
Meet Performance Engineers, Developers, Architects, QA, DevOps and technology enthusiasts facing the same challenges you do.

Who is it for?

Whether you're already working in Performance Engineering or simply want to understand how modern systems should be tested, observed and optimized at scale - this meetup is for you.

Come for the engineering.
Stay for the discussions, networking and people.

See you in Warsaw! 🚀

Agenda

🤖 18:00 | From Ad Hoc Testing to Performance Engineering

How Circle K Turned Late-Stage Testing into a Structured, Proactive Practice

Speakers: Tomasz Popiołek (Circle K) & Jakub Zamojski (Sii)

📊********Overview

What happens when performance testing is performed too late, depends on individual experts and becomes a bottleneck instead of a safety net?

Circle K decided to change that.

In this session, Tomasz and Jakub will share the real journey from reactive, late-stage performance testing to a more structured and proactive Performance Engineering practice.

They will show what changed in the process, tooling and organization, how shift-left was introduced, how the testing platform evolved, and what they learned along the way.

This is not a theoretical maturity model.

It is a story about what actually had to change to make Performance Engineering part of everyday software delivery.

🚀********What You’ll Take Away

✅ How to move from ad hoc performance testing to a repeatable engineering process

✅ What shift-left really changes in day-to-day delivery

✅ Lessons learned while evolving a performance testing platform

✅ How Circle K approached open-source tooling and platform stability

✅ Where Gatling Enterprise fits into the strategy

✅ Why tooling alone is not enough - skills, collaboration and culture matter

About the Speakers

👨‍🏫 Tomasz Popiołek
Senior Test Manager, Circle K

QA leader focused on agile delivery, quality strategy and continuous improvement. Outside work, Tomasz is a military enthusiast and licensed pilot.

👨‍🏫 Jakub Zamojski
Performance Engineer, Sii

Performance Engineering specialist focused on shift-left practices, process improvements and scalable testing solutions. Outside work, Jakub is an instrumentalist, vocalist and sound engineer.

🤖 18:45 | Performance Testing, Reimagined with Tricentis NeoLoad

From Performance Testing Fundamentals to AI-Driven Capabilities

Speaker: Stephan Kehren (Tricentis)

📊********Overview

Performance testing is changing.

AI is no longer just something we talk about in roadmaps - it is starting to influence how engineers create tests, analyze results, investigate failures and interact with performance platforms.

In this session, Stephan Kehren will show how NeoLoad supports continuous performance testing across APIs, web applications, SAP and legacy environments - and demonstrate how Tricentis is bringing AI directly into Performance Engineering workflows.

Expect a practical look at AI Chat, MCP-based orchestration, AI Workspace integration, automated analysis and the emerging concept of an AI Performance Agent.

🚀********What You’ll See

✅ Agentic Performance Testing and automated Results Analysis

✅ AI Chat directly inside NeoLoad Web

✅ MCP-based workflow orchestration

✅ AI Workspace integration

✅ Key capabilities introduced in NeoLoad 2026.1

✅ A preview of what is coming next with the AI Performance Agent

About the Speaker

👨‍🏫 Stephan Kehren
Senior Performance Solution Architect, Tricentis

Performance Engineering expert with extensive experience across SAP, mainframe and modern web environments. For more than 11 years, Stephan has helped organizations across EMEA mature their Performance Engineering practices and establish Centers of Excellence.

🤖 19:30 | Can AI Run Your Performance Tests?

Speaker: Aodan O'Sullivan (Sabre)

📊********Overview

AI can generate test plans, suggest workloads, analyze performance data, and identify potential root causes. However, it can also produce misleading conclusions when used without appropriate context and validation.

Drawing on real performance investigations, Aodan will share where AI delivered value, where it fell short, and what guardrails are needed and demonstrate how these lessons were incorporated into a standardized and increasingly automated workflow.

🚀********What You’ll Take Away

✅ How AI can accelerate analysis of massive diagnostic datasets

✅ Where AI helped during capacity testing and troubleshooting

✅ Where AI-generated conclusions failed or required verification

✅ Why engineering context and experience remain essential

✅ A realistic view of AI’s role in Performance Engineering today

About the Speaker

👨‍🏫 Aodan O'Sullivan
Performance Engineering Expert, Sabre

Performance Engineering specialist with 25 years of industry experience, including nearly 18 years at Sabre. Aodan specializes in performance testing, capacity analysis and troubleshooting complex systems, with a particular interest in knowledge sharing and applying AI to engineering challenges.

About the Performance Engineering Community

The Performance Engineering Community is a joint initiative powered by Sabre, Sii, Pega, Allegro and commercetools, bringing engineers together to share knowledge, experience and real-world practices.

We bring engineers together to share real experiences, real problems and real solutions around Performance Engineering.

No textbook theory. No perfect success stories.

Just engineers talking openly about what worked, what failed and what they learned along the way.

And because great communities are built around people, not only technology, our meetups are also about conversations, networking and having a good time together.