Study your production traffic patterns before designing load tests. What is the ratio of reads to writes? What are the most common user journeys? A load test that does not match real usage patterns gives false confidence.
Strong answers cover: analysing production traffic patterns, creating realistic user journeys with think times and varied paths, ramping load gradually, monitoring system behaviour during the test (not just the test results), and establishing clear pass/fail criteria. Best candidates discuss the difference between load, stress, and soak testing.
Advanced testing skill. Many load tests are unrealistic and therefore misleading. Candidates who design realistic scenarios and monitor system behaviour during tests demonstrate performance engineering maturity.