David Campbell
Performance Engineering Leader · 25 Years · AI Innovation · Author
LinkedInBuilt a reputation for the roles others avoid: rescuing failing programmes, founding specialist divisions, and turning around delivery under pressure. 25 years across government, policing, finance, and enterprise. Trained by the people who built LoadRunner. Now building AI that removes the pain from performance testing.
Career Timeline
Built an AI performance testing platform from scratch: text-to-code generation, automatic correlation, self-healing pipelines, and load test QA. Evolved from brute-force reasoning to delegation-based orchestration (tokens from 6,800 to 3,100, dispatch turns from 6 to 2.5). Built Magic Mandy, an autonomous AI assistant running 24/7 across Telegram, Slack, and Google Chat, coordinating the full agent platform. Mandy autonomously restored production during an outage with no operator available.
Saved £100k/year by designing an open-source containerised testing framework with bespoke JMeter plugins. Cut AWS resource usage by 90% through automated JVM garbage collection and storage management, preventing full framework outages. Built an AI performance testing analysis utility, an AI ETL validation tool (Oracle to Postgres, replacing weeks of manual work), and security testing AI pilots.
Led a team of 16 NFT consultants across 50+ concurrent engagements. Stood up an NFT Centre of Excellence covering internal delivery and supplier assurance. Designed an AI-powered analysis reporting utility that cut reporting from 1 hour to 5 minutes. Automated environment discovery (2 hours to 2 minutes) and chaos testing (2.5 days to 2 hours), increasing infrastructure visibility by 700%.
Founded the Met’s first dedicated performance engineering capability from nothing. Built the team (zero to 12), the tooling, the processes, and the methodology for one of the world’s largest police forces.
Rescued a failing programme at Specsavers. Delivered for IBM at the DVLA, for HP on the UK Prison System, and for the national fire rescue modernisation programme. Trained by Starbase — the UK’s leading LoadRunner consultancy. HP LoadRunner Certified.
What People Say
AI & Innovation
“I respect his zeal to do innovation and strategic work apart from regular delivery. Be it exploring different tools, trying to bring up own DevOps, innovation such as incorporating Artificial Intelligence, LLMs, and OpenAI APIs to help analysis and reporting. It’s very difficult to visualise and experience such a push within a team full of independent contractors.”
Sr Performance Engineer (Azure, AWS, K8s), HMPO
“DC’s strategic thinking and innovative ideas have greatly contributed to the team’s success. His innovative idea to use AI in performance testing analysis demonstrates his forward-looking mindset.”
Azure AI Engineer (AI-900 & AI-102), HMPO
“David has gone above and beyond enabling forward thinking in areas such as AI and automation of processes to add real value to the customer. David’s strengths in my opinion are in NFT strategy, resource planning and leadership.”
Delivery Manager, HMPO
Leadership & Delivery
“An extremely competent and high-performing professional, with the unique ability to think strategically balanced with the attention to detail to execute effectively.”
Application Support Specialist, Verizon Business
“The way that he built and managed the offshore delivery team was a lesson in how it should be done. He built a fantastic, supportive team spirit.”
Head of Delivery, Specsavers
“DC is phenomenal in the realm of non-functional testing. His leadership empowered the team to deliver our best work, and his mentorship has elevated the skills and confidence of everyone.”
NFT Manager, HM Passport Office
“He’s equally happy analyzing results, taking the raw data and making it speak, communicating with clarity to all levels — that’s a rarer skill and something that sets David apart from many other testers.”
NFT Consultant, Metropolitan Police Service
“David Campbell is an expert you want on your team. If it can be done, he’ll be able to do it. If it’s difficult, he’ll find a way through it or around it.”
Service Delivery Manager, Metropolitan Police Service
“One of the best I came across. He genuinely cares about the people he works with. He can easily excel in a senior management role that requires good technical abilities.”
Head of Testing Services
“The quality of his work is of such a high standard that my client has retained his services for additional consultancy in other areas.”
Senior Talent Acquisition Manager, Unisys
Education & Certifications
The Book Behind LoadMagic
Performance testing tools haven’t meaningfully changed in 15+ years. Here’s why I decided to change that.
Want to talk?
Whether you want to assess your PE capability, explore AI-augmented testing, or just have a practitioner conversation about a challenge you’re facing — I’m available.