Senior / Staff Software Engineer (C++ Backend + Windows/Excel COM Automation)

Role Overview

We are looking for a Senior/Staff Software Engineer with strong C++ backend development experience to build a production-grade Excel execution platform for a Fortune 500 financial services client.

The platform automates macro-heavy Microsoft Excel workbooks that depend on COM/VSTO add-ins (such as Capital IQ), enabling reliable server-side execution on Windows while preserving desktop add-in behavior.

This role is ideal for engineers who have built high-performance backend systems and are comfortable working with Windows automation, Microsoft Office interoperability, and Azure-based infrastructure.

Availability to join quickly is an important consideration.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain production-grade backend services primarily in C++.
• Develop reliable Windows-based services that automate Microsoft Excel execution.
• Build and maintain the Excel execution engine to:
• Open workbooks
• Load COM/VSTO add-ins
• Execute calculations
• Capture structured outputs
• Version results back to cloud storage
• Build session-isolated Windows worker processes that preserve desktop Excel behavior required by Office add-ins.
• Design scalable worker orchestration including scheduling, retries, concurrency control, and failure recovery.
• Validate workbook outputs before publishing results.
• Optimize throughput and reliability for large-scale monthly processing workloads.
• Collaborate with architects, DevOps, and infrastructure teams on deployment, VM images, scaling, and operational excellence.
• Troubleshoot performance, reliability, and interoperability issues across modern and legacy Windows environments.

Required Skills

• 6 16 years of professional software engineering experience.
• Strong production experience in C++ backend development.
• Python experience is desirable but not mandatory.
• Strong understanding of:
• Backend services
• APIs
• Concurrency
• Multithreading
• Performance optimization
• Debugging
• Experience building reliable enterprise production systems.
• Strong Windows development experience.
• Experience or willingness to work with:
• Microsoft Excel automation
• COM Automation
• VSTO / Office Interop
• Windows desktop automation
• Experience with distributed processing, queues, retry mechanisms, and resilient service architecture.
• Experience deploying applications on Microsoft Azure.

Nice to Have

• Python development experience.
• VBA macro understanding.
• VSTO / .NET Office Interop.
• Experience with financial services Excel add-ins such as:
• Capital IQ
• Bloomberg
• FactSet
• MSCI
• RPA tools (UiPath, Power Automate).
• OpenTelemetry.
• Terraform.
• Containerization.
• CI/CD pipelines.
• Financial services or asset management domain experience.
• Experience working in regulated or audited environments.

Preferred Candidate Profile

We are looking for engineers who:

• Have strong production-grade C++ backend engineering experience.
• Can build scalable, reliable enterprise systems.
• Are comfortable working in Windows-based environments.
• Can quickly learn Excel COM/VSTO automation if they do not already possess that experience.
• Have experience with Azure cloud services.
• Can own features from design through production support.
• Are available to join in the near term.