After 12+ years in .NET, if I had to restart my career
Here is what I will learn to survive AI job layoffs
As a Technical Lead and a Microsoft MVP, I have worked on many projects in different teams.
Learning fundamentals is now more important than before to survive AI job layoffs.
The goal at junior level is to build a solid foundation: one language deeply, basic tooling, and the ability to ship working features in a team environment.
.NET & C# Fundamentals:
- C#, CLR, BCL. .NET CLI, NuGet
General Development Skills:
- Git for version control
- JSON and XML
- Networking Fundamentals
- REST Fundamentals
- SQL Basics
- Data structures & algorithms
- Clean code fundamentals
- CI/CD Basics
- Agile basics
IDE & AI Tools:
- One IDE well: Visual Studio or JetBrains Rider
- VS Code as a secondary editor
- GitHub Copilot or JetBrains AI Assistant
ASP .NET Core Basics:
- Routing
- Middlewares
- Controllers
- Minimal APIs
- Configuration and Options Pattern
- Error handling and Problem Details
- Logging
- Dependency Injection
- Validation
- Mapping
- CORS, Auth basics
- OpenAPI / Swagger
SQL Databases:
- PostgreSQL or MS SQL Server — pick one, learn it well
- SQLite for local development and testing
ORMs:
- EF Core
- Dapper
Testing Fundamentals:
- xUnit or NUnit
- NSubstitute or Moq
- Bogus
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Middle Developer
The goal at middle level is to design and build features independently, make good technical decisions within a bounded scope, and write production-quality code.
.NET & C# - Deep Dive:
- Async patterns
- Refactoring skills
Design Principles:
- SOLID principles
- DRY, KISS, YAGNI
Design Patterns:
- Creational, Structural, Behavioral
- Repository and Unit of Work
Code Design:
- N-Layered Architecture
- Clean Architecture
- Vertical Slice Architecture
ASP .NET Core — Intermediate:
- Filters and Attributes
- Authentication and Authorization
- Options Pattern
- Health Checks
- Rate Limiting
- API Versioning
- Response Compression
- HostedServices
- ASP .NET Core Identity
- Security — Intermediate
Task Scheduling:
- Quartz, Hangfire or TickerQ
Communication:
- HttpClient, HttpClientFactory and Refit
- Polly
- gRPC basics
- Event Messaging (RabbitMQ): MassTransit or Rebus
- - SignalR
- WebSockets
NoSQL Databases:
- MongoDB, LiteDB (local)
- Understanding SQL vs NoSQL trade-offs
Caching
- InMemory, StackExchange Redis, HybridCache and FusionCache
Testing:
- Integration testing
- Testcontainers
- Respawn
- Verify for snapshot testing
Cloud:
- One cloud platform (Azure, AWS, Google Cloud) — core services
CI/CD:
- GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps
Observability Basics
- Metrics, logs, traces
A list for Senior and Lead developers is coming next week.
👉 Want to fix your knowledge gaps in .NET?
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♻️ Repost to help others level up as .NET devs
➕ Follow me ( @anton-martyniuk ) to improve your .NET and Architecture Skills
Looking forward to this #AspireConf session with @socketnorm - 🚀 Building and deploying with Aspire and #AWS
March 23 | 3:00-3:30 PM PT
⌚Mark your calendar: https://t.co/oCeNlfWNU4
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.NET Developers - if you have ASP .NET websites using Web Forms or Razor views in need of modernization, please take our .NET UI modernization survey. Your feedback helps us design better tools.📋 https://t.co/6PNTrdvegi
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Did you know you can use .NET Aspire with AWS to build cloud-native applications? I'm excited to be presenting ".NET Aspire and AWS: a match made in heaven" at NDC London 2025 next week. If you're at the conference, please come by and visit us in the AWS booth. #dotnet#AWS
This is a lesson I learned the hard way.
"Building systems is easy. The hard part is keeping them alive."
Building an API is easy.
Shipping breaking changes is hard.
Designing a service is easy.
Making it resilient and highly available is hard.
Writing code for a feature is easy.
Decoupling the implementation to handle future changes is hard.
Implementing a microservice is easy.
Managing distributed transactions is hard.
Storing data in NoSQL is easy.
Modeling relationships and ensuring query performance is hard.
Adding Cache is easy.
Ensuring cache consistency and invalidation is hard.
Handling one user's request is easy.
Scaling to handle millions concurrently is hard.
Logging errors is easy.
Building observability, tracing, and alerting is hard.
Creating unit tests is easy.
Good test coverage is hard.
Adding retries to a failed request is easy.
Adding back-off strategies and Idempotency is hard.
Using a Queue is easy.
Preventing message loss and handling poison messages is hard.
Using serverless functions is easy.
Managing cold starts, scaling, and vendor lock-in is hard.
Building systems isn't just about writing code; you need to:
• Buil systems that handle scale, complexity, and uncertainty.
• Design adaptable architectures ready for change.
• Enabe teams to build faster, safer, and better software.
What’s been your hardest 'easy'?
Did you know there's a .NET on AWS community? Follow our social media, blogs, YouTube influencers, and open source projects - and add your own voice. Get plugged in to the .NET on AWS community today. 💬 https://t.co/HgDOTF9s9k
#dotnet#AWS#AWSCommunity
Want to run .NET on Kubernetes in the cloud? This free course on AWS Skill Builder teaches you Kubernetes and Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service, a managed service for running Kubernetes workloads without the need to run your own cluster.
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If you are building/upgrading apps using .NET 8. This AWS guide shares great info on AWS services for Compute, Containers, Serverless, and CI/CD supporting .NET 8 today. https://t.co/gb0TlzZT5G
For the month of May, the .NET on AWS FOSS fund is proud to have selected Avalonia UI as part of its monthly pledge to sponsor .NET #OSS projects. 🎉
Our selection committee awarded @AvaloniaUI 12 $500 payments totaling $6k in funding. Thanks for empowering the #dotnet ecosystem!