How to get hired
A .NET job is rarely just C#. Posts typically pair C# and ASP.NET Core with Azure, SQL Server, Entity Framework, and a frontend framework (Angular more often than React). If your resume says only "C#, .NET", recruiters cannot tell which kind of .NET developer you are, so name the pieces.
Who hires .NET developers
Three groups dominate. Enterprises and their GCCs that standardised on Microsoft years ago: insurance, healthcare, manufacturing, logistics. Testing and scientific companies, with Eurofins a regular name among .NET employers, where the software runs labs and samples rather than shops. And engineering-services firms such as Quest Global and NeST Digital, plus the big services firms (HCLTech, UST, NTT Data, Capgemini) staffing client programmes. Microsoft itself hires C# engineers in Hyderabad and Bengaluru, with product-company interviews.
Migration is the hidden job market
A lot of .NET work in India is moving old systems forward: ASP.NET Web Forms and MVC 5, WCF services and .NET Framework 4.x applications rebuilt on ASP.NET Core. Microsoft's support calendar drives this. .NET 8 and .NET 9 both reached end of support on 10 November 2026, and .NET 10, released in November 2025, is the long-term release supported until November 2028, so companies on 8 have upgrade projects now. If you have done a framework-to-core migration, put it at the top of your resume with what you moved, how big it was, and what broke.
The C# round
Interviewers check whether you understand the language, not just Visual Studio. Prepare:
- Value types vs reference types, boxing, and struct vs class
- async and await: what happens on the thread, why .Result or .Wait() can deadlock in older ASP.NET, and ConfigureAwait
- LINQ: deferred execution, IEnumerable vs IQueryable, and why a query can hit the database twice
- IDisposable and using, and what the garbage collector does and does not clean up
- Interfaces vs abstract classes, and SOLID with a real example from your code
- Delegates, events and extension methods
The ASP.NET Core and data round
Then the framework: the middleware pipeline and its order, dependency-injection lifetimes (transient, scoped, singleton) and the bug you get when a singleton holds a scoped service, model validation, filters, authentication with JWT, and minimal APIs vs controllers. On data: Entity Framework Core change tracking, migrations, the N+1 query problem, and when you would drop to a stored procedure in SQL Server. Many .NET interviews include writing a SQL query with joins and grouping on paper.
Certification
Microsoft's Azure Developer Associate exam (AZ-204), the one many .NET developers used to take, was retired on 31 July 2026. If you want a Microsoft credential, check Microsoft Learn for the current developer certifications before you buy any course that still advertises AZ-204. Employers ask for Azure experience far more than for the certificate itself.
First titles
Freshers usually join a services firm as Software Engineer or Associate and are put on .NET by project need. Lateral titles read .NET Developer, Dot Net Developer, Senior .NET Developer, .NET Full Stack Developer and Lead Software Engineer.
What the work is like
Enterprise .NET teams work in long release cycles with plenty of documentation and change approvals. You will spend time inside Azure DevOps boards and pipelines, SQL Server Management Studio and old code with few tests. Migration projects are satisfying but slow: you learn a business by reading its old code.
The growth paths are senior developer to technical lead, or towards Azure architecture, where pay rises fastest. Developers who keep only Web Forms and old MVC skills see their options narrow; those who move to ASP.NET Core, Azure and a modern frontend keep the widest choice.