Senior Software Engineer, Windows/Desktop Applications - Kharkiv, Ukraine

Speechify builds text-to-speech products used by over 50 million people. The role is to lead the design and development of native Windows desktop applications using Windows App SDK, WinUI, C#, XAML, and C++. The team is fully distributed and includes engineers from Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.

• Lead the design, architecture, and development of native Windows desktop applications using Windows App SDK, WinUI (or related UI frameworks), C#, XAML, and — when needed — C++.
• Define and enforce best-practices for Windows desktop development across the codebase: code architecture, performance, memory usage, responsive UI, cross-version compatibility (Windows 10/11+), and maintainability.
• Drive accessibility efforts: integrate and validate support for accessibility APIs (e.g. Microsoft UI Automation or other relevant Windows accessibility frameworks), ensure UI controls, focus management, keyboard navigation, screen-reader support, and usability for users with disabilities.
• Collaborate closely with product designers, UX researchers, QA, and other stakeholders to shape feature planning, UI/UX architecture, and long-term roadmap for the Windows platform.
• Take ownership of full lifecycle of features: conception → design → implementation → testing → release → maintenance. Ensure quality, reliability, and consistency across releases.
• Identify, diagnose, and resolve complex bugs, performance bottlenecks, memory leaks, rendering issues, or compatibility problems — and propose robust architectural or design solutions.

• 3+ years in Windows desktop application development using Windows App SDK, WinUI (or similar), C#, XAML — and ideally additional experience with native Windows code (C++, Win32/WinRT/COM).
• Deep understanding of Windows application architecture, including interop between managed code (.NET) and native code.
• Proven track record of designing, building, and shipping production-quality desktop applications, with an emphasis on reliability, performance, scalability, and maintainability.
• Strong experience with accessibility APIs on Windows (e.g. Microsoft UI Automation or similar), and a dedication to building accessible and inclusive software.
• Excellent software engineering fundamentals: OOP, design patterns, data structures, algorithms, memory management, multi-threading or asynchronous programming (where relevant).
• Experience leading technical design, mentoring other engineers, conducting code reviews, and making architecture-level decisions.
• Strong communication skills; ability to articulate tradeoffs, collaborate with cross-functional teams, and drive consensus.
• A user-centric mindset: focus on building polished, intuitive, and accessible experiences for end users.
• Preferred: Experience with writing automated tests for UI — unit tests, integration tests, UI automation tests; familiarity with relevant testing frameworks.
• Preferred: Experience with performance optimization for desktop apps (memory usage, startup time, rendering performance, high-DPI support, responsiveness under load).
• Preferred: Experience with localization/globalization, right-to-left UI support, internationalization, accessibility for multiple regions.
• Preferred: Familiarity with telemetry, analytics, crash reporting, logging, and error monitoring in desktop applications.
• Preferred: Previous experience in shaping CI/CD workflows, release pipelines, and deployment strategies for desktop applications.
• Preferred: Demonstrated ability to take ownership of feature areas or modules and drive them long-term, including maintenance, refactoring, and technical debt management.