Airbnb has developed Impulse, an internal load testing framework designed to improve the reliability and performance of its microservices. The tool enables distributed, large-scale testing and allows engineering teams to run self-service, context-aware load tests integrated with CI pipelines. By simulating production-like traffic and interactions, Impulse helps engineers identify bottlenecks and errors before changes reach production. According to the Airbnb engineering team, Impulse is already in use in several customer support backend services and is under review for broader adoption.
My approach was to create a load-testing framework that is flexible enough to handle the unique challenges of game developmentâfrom custom protocols to complex interactions in large-scale simulations.