In modern software development, shifting left with performance testing—starting testing early in the development lifecycle—is key to catching issues before they become costly problems. This approach delivers significant benefits, including faster feedback, improved quality, and reduced risk. In this session, I’ll discuss why performance testing is essential and highlight the best practices and common mistakes to avoid.

We’ll focus on Grafana k6, an open-source tool trusted by major IT players, and explore why selecting the right toolset is crucial for successful testing. I’ll demonstrate how Grafana k6 is one of the top choices for performance testing and how it integrates seamlessly into development workflows.

Starting from the basics, we’ll gradually build a full-fledged performance test for a cloud-based web service, ensuring it meets required performance standards and service-level agreements (SLAs) while providing early, actionable insights throughout the development process.