The individuals will be responsible for running both industry standard (e.g. SpecJAppServer2007 when its released, SpecJMS2007, etc.), and internal benchmarks (e.g. Seam benchmark, EJB 3 benchmark, etc.), and profiling the middle-ware for these benchmarks.

They need to be capable of analyzing the results, applying changes to the code to enhance the performance, showing significant performance improvements, documenting the change, and submitting patches to the appropriate upstream components. Of course, acceptance of those patches will be subject to the lead for the component, and they will need to work with the upstream open source developers appropriately to get their patches applied, or re-work them to meet with the approval of the upstream open source developers. If those fixes can also be applied to the product branches, they will need to work within the cumulative patch process to have those fixes applied as well.

Skills in Java performance tuning, analyzing profiling data, and making performance enhancements based on that data is a must.
Also, there will be skills needed in databases, especially MySQL, as many of the benchmarks have a large database component to them.
BS in Computer Science or equivalent degree with a minimum of 5 years of related programming experience.
Excellent communication skills in English (verbal and written) Works independently on tasks with minimal guidance on complex issues.