Learning paths

The Academy contains a lot of content. These learning paths give you a focused, ordered reading list matched to your role and goals. Follow the path that fits, then explore the remaining sections at your own pace.

Tip

Each path below links to specific pages. You do not need to read every page on every path — pick the entries most relevant to your current project and come back for the rest.

QA engineer (new to performance testing)

You run functional and regression tests today and want to add performance coverage to your team’s workflow.

Goal: understand the basics, run a first load test in MaxoPerf, and establish a repeatable regression pattern.

1. What is performance testing?
2. Performance testing vs other test types
3. Core metrics explained
4. Virtual users and concurrency
5. Smoke test — run one now to prove your setup works.
6. Load test — the baseline test type you will run most often.
7. Getting started — MaxoPerf walk-through from sign-in to first run.
8. Anatomy of a load test result
9. Baseline regression test
10. Scheduled regression test
11. Do & Don’t: designing realistic load
12. Pre-flight checklist

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Developer (performance-curious)

You write application code and want to add a performance gate to your CI pipeline or validate a specific API under load.

Goal: run an API load test, integrate it into CI, and set a failure criterion.

1. What is performance testing?
2. Core metrics explained
3. Latency percentiles deep dive — why p95/p99 matter more than averages.
4. API performance test
5. REST API CRUD load test — recipe you can copy today.
6. Auth / login token flow — handle authenticated endpoints.
7. k6 scripts on Maxoperf — if your team prefers JS.
8. Taurus fundamentals — the quickest path to a repeatable YAML config.
9. Failure criteria / pass-fail gates
10. CI-gated performance test
11. Run tests from CI
12. Common pitfalls and anti-patterns

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Performance engineer (experienced)

You already know load testing well and want to understand how MaxoPerf models the patterns you use — open/closed workloads, complex executor chains, distributed multi-region runs, and advanced analysis.

Goal: map your existing knowledge to MaxoPerf; run advanced scenarios.

1. Open vs closed workload models
2. Ramp-up, think time, and pacing
3. Baselines, SLOs, and error budgets
4. How much load do you need?
5. Taurus executors catalog — every executor MaxoPerf supports.
6. Stress test
7. Spike test
8. Soak / endurance test
9. Breakpoint / capacity test
10. Multi-region distributed load
11. RPS-controlled throughput test
12. Staged ramp profile
13. Comparing runs and baselines
14. Build a reporting dashboard
15. Interpreting results dos and don’ts

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Quality lead / quality center

You own the performance testing strategy for a team or organization and want consistent, repeatable processes.

Goal: establish standards, pick the right test types for each scenario, and give your team a shared vocabulary.

1. Test types overview — the full taxonomy and decision matrix.
2. Baselines, SLOs, and error budgets
3. Choosing safe test environments
4. Designing realistic load
5. Test data dos and don’ts
6. Safe and ethical load testing
7. Common pitfalls and anti-patterns
8. Pre-flight checklist
9. Learning paths — share this page with your team so each member follows the path that fits their role.
10. Glossary — establish a shared vocabulary across the team.
11. Scheduled regression test
12. CI-gated performance test
13. Failure criteria / pass-fail gates

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What’s next

After completing your path, explore the remaining Academy sections to fill in any gaps. The How to use this library page explains the page template and conventions every author follows, which helps you read any Academy page efficiently.