Sign-In
Cart
Navigating Performance Engineering: The Collapse of Performance Value
Paperback
Series: Navigating Performance Engineering, Book 1
Investing & FinanceProgramming
Publisher Price: $39.99
ISBN13: 9781964222073
Publisher: Perfbytes Press
Published: Apr 1 2026
Pages: 130
Weight: 0.70
Height: 0.35 Width: 7.00 Depth: 10.00
Language: English
Software systems increasingly determine whether organizations succeed or fail. Yet the discipline responsible for understanding how those systems behave under pressure-performance engineering-has quietly lost much of the authority it once held.
Navigating Performance Engineering: The Collapse of Performance Value examines how that loss occurred and what it means for modern software organizations.
Drawing on more than three decades of experience in enterprise performance engineering, James L. Pulley III argues that the profession did not fail because systems became too complex. It failed because the scientific foundations of measurement-reproducibility, control, and experimental discipline-were gradually replaced by tooling convenience and compressed delivery schedules.
The result is a profession that often produces activity rather than value: dashboards without decisions, reports without change, and tests that measure performance without influencing outcomes.
This book reconstructs the original purpose of performance engineering as a discipline of risk discovery and operational truth. Through a series of practical and conceptual explorations, the author shows how modern organizations drifted away from measurement science and toward instrumentation theater.
Topics include:
- Why performance engineering is fundamentally a risk discipline, not a testing phase
- How tool-centric workflows replaced experimental thinking
- Why reproducibility, control, and validation disappeared from practice
- The structural effects of compressed delivery pipelines on performance work
- The role of requirements in defining measurable performance truth
- Why modern observability emerged as a reaction to declining pre-production confidence
Rather than proposing yet another testing methodology or toolset, this book focuses on restoring the intellectual foundations of performance engineering itself.
Performance engineering is not about producing charts. It is about producing change.
When measurement cannot influence decisions, the discipline loses authority-and organizations pay the price in production failures, operational instability, and lost trust.
For performance engineers, architects, SREs, and technology leaders, Navigating Performance Engineering provides a clear and challenging examination of how the profession reached this point-and how it can recover its original purpose.
Also from
Pulley, James L.
Software Performance Risk Management: Engineering Survival in a World Built on Fragile Software
Pulley, James L.
Paperback
The Fleetwood: Engineering Discipline for Software Systems That Must Be Trusted
Pulley, James L.
Hardcover
Software Performance Risk Management: Engineering Survival in a World Built on Fragile Software
Pulley, James L.
Hardcover
Also in
Programming
Interactive Theorem Proving and Program Development: Coq'art: The Calculus of Inductive Constructions
Bertot, Yves
Castéran, Pierre
Hardcover
The Legend of Zelda(tm) Tears of the Kingdom - The Complete Official Guide: Collector's Edition
Piggyback
Hardcover
Python Crash Course, 3rd Edition: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming
Matthes, Eric
Paperback
The Legend of Zelda(tm) Tears of the Kingdom - The Complete Official Guide: Standard Edition
Piggyback
Paperback
Crisis Engineering: Time-Tested Tools for Turning Chaos Into Clarity
Weaver, Matthew
Dickerson, Mikey
Nitze, Marina
Paperback
Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations
Kim, Gene
Forsgren Phd, Nicole
Humble, Jez
Paperback
Embedded Systems with ARM Cortex-M Microcontrollers in Assembly Language and C: Fourth Edition
Zhu, Yifeng
Paperback
Fundamentals of Software Architecture: A Modern Engineering Approach
Ford, Neal
Richards, Mark
Paperback
Make: Electronics: Learning by Discovery: A Hands-On Primer for the New Electronics Enthusiast
Platt, Charles
Paperback
Vibe Coding: Building Production-Grade Software with Genai, Chat, Agents, and Beyond
Kim, Gene
Yegge, Steve
Paperback
AI Projects with Raspberry Pi: High-Performance Artificial Intelligence for Robotics, Security, Home Automation, and Vision
Jepson, Brian
Hattersley, Lucy
Paperback
The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change
Fournier, Camille
Paperback
I Have an App Idea: The Essential Guide to Building an App Without Tech Skills
Spann, Amanda
Paperback
The Return on AI: From Promise to Profit in the Age of Intelligent Business
Sawhney, Mohanbir
Mittal, Ashwin
Paperback
The Devops Handbook, 2nd Edition: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, & Security in Technology Organizations
Debois, Patrick
Kim, Gene
Humble, Jez
Paperback
The Staff Engineer's Path: A Guide for Individual Contributors Navigating Growth and Change
Reilly, Tanya
Paperback
The Developer's Guide to AI: A Field Guide for the Working Developer
Reghunadh, Jerry M.
Thompson, Danny
Orshalick, Jacob
Paperback
Building Applications with AI Agents: Designing and Implementing Multiagent Systems
Albada, Michael
Paperback
Software Architecture: The Hard Parts: Modern Trade-Off Analyses for Distributed Architectures
Ford, Neal
Richards, Mark
Sadalage, Pramod
Paperback
Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions
McDowell, Gayle Laakmann
Paperback
Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to Html, Css, Javascript, and Web Images
Robbins, Jennifer
Paperback
Observability Engineering: Achieving Production Excellence
Majors, Charity
Fong-Jones, Liz
Miranda, George
Paperback
Forecasting: Principles and Practice, the Pythonic Way
Athanasopoulos, George
Hyndman, Rob J.
Paperback
The New AI Cold War: Liberty vs. Tyranny in the Age of Machine Empires
Maginnis, Ltc Robert L.
Paperback
Linux Basics for Hackers, 2nd Edition: Getting Started with Networking, Scripting, and Security in Kali
Occupytheweb
Paperback
Building Safer Technology: A Field Guide to Failing Well
Coles, Neil
Kissner, Lea
Zunger, Yonatan
Paperback
The Pragmatic Programmer: Your Journey to Mastery, 20th Anniversary Edition
Thomas, David
Hunt, Andrew
Hardcover
A Human's Guide to Machine Intelligence: How Algorithms Are Shaping Our Lives and How We Can Stay in Control
Hosanagar, Kartik
Paperback
SQL QuickStart Guide: The Simplified Beginner's Guide to Managing, Analyzing, and Manipulating Data With SQL
Shields, Walter
Hardcover
Grokking Algorithms, Second Edition: An Illustrated Guide for Programmers and Other Curious People
Bhargava, Aditya Y.
Paperback
The Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2026: Astounding Projects with Raspberry Pi Computers
Makers of Raspberry Pi Official Magazine, The
Paperback
Generative AI Design Patterns: Solutions to Common Challenges When Building Genai Agents and Applications
Lakshmanan, Valliappa
Hapke, Hannes
Paperback
Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science
Graham, Ronald
Patashnik, Oren
Knuth, Donald
Hardcover
Learning Domain-Driven Design: Aligning Software Architecture and Business Strategy
Khononov, Vlad
Paperback
Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems
Leng, Christof
Beyer, Betsy
Jones, Chris
Paperback
Head First Design Patterns: Building Extensible and Maintainable Object-Oriented Software
Robson, Elisabeth
Freeman, Eric
Paperback
The Software Architect Elevator: Redefining the Architect's Role in the Digital Enterprise
Hohpe, Gregor
Paperback
Learning Generative AI Tools for Excel: Speed Up Your Everyday Tasks with Microsoft Excel, Copilot, Chatgpt, and Beyond
Duca, Angelica Lo
Paperback
Arduino Programming for Beginners: A Comprehensive Beginner's Guide to Learn the Realms of Arduino Programming from A-Z
Protosmith, Ada
Paperback
Building AI-Powered Products: The Essential Guide to AI and Genai Product Management
Nika, Marily
Paperback
Building Resilient Distributed Systems: Patterns and Practices for Stable Software
Newman, Sam
Paperback
Frictionless: 7 Steps to Remove Barriers, Unlock Value, and Outpace Your Competition in the AI Era
Noda, Abi
Forsgren, Nicole
Paperback
Build an AI Agent (from Scratch): Agents That Reason, Plan, and ACT Autonomously
Hur, Jungjun
Song, Younghee
Paperback
Debugging: The 9 Indispensable Rules for Finding Even the Most Elusive Software and Hardware Problems
Agans, David J.
Paperback
AI Agents with MCP: Model Context Protocol for Building Clients, Servers, and End-To-End Agents
Stratis, Kyle
Paperback
Signals & Levers: Systems Thinking Tools to Unblock Software Delivery
Hendrickson, Elisabeth
Tosi, Joel
Paperback
Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time
Wright, Hyrum
Winters, Titus
Manshreck, Tom
Paperback
Learning Php, MySQL & JavaScript: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Dynamic Websites
Nixon, Robin
Paperback
Living a Jewish Life, Revised and Updated: Jewish Traditions, Customs, and Values for Today's Families
Diamant, Anita
Cooper, Howard
Paperback
Python Programming for Young Coders: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Coding for Beginners, Kids, and Teens
Pandey, Anand
Paperback
Java in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference
Clark, Jason R.
Flanagan, David
Evans, Benjamin J.
Paperback
Programming Massively Parallel Processors: A Hands-On Approach
El Hajj, Izzat
Hwu, Wen-Mei W.
Kirk, David B.
Paperback
Computer Science from Scratch: Building Interpreters, Art, Emulators and ML in Python
Kopec, David
Paperback
Adobe Photoshop, 2nd Edition: A Complete Course and Compendium of Features
Laskevitch, Stephen
Paperback
Kubernetes in Action, Second Edition: Deploying and Managing Containers and Cloud-Native Applications
Conner, Kevin
Luksa, Marko
Paperback
Electronic Music and Sound Design - Theory and Practice with Max 9 - Volume 1 (Fifth Edition)
Cipriani, Alessandro
Maurizio, Giri
Paperback
Prompt Engineering for Llms: The Art and Science of Building Large Language Model-Based Applications
Berryman, John
Ziegler, Albert
Paperback
Practical AI Security: A Hands-On Guide to Attacking, Defending, and Securing Modern AI Systems
Farlow, Harriet
Paperback