Engineering Role

.NET Backend Engineer

Build, ship, and secure .NET backend applications on Azure with modern DevOps practices — containers, CI/CD pipelines, code quality gates, and cloud-native deployment patterns.

10Courses
IntermediateLevel
110h+Est. Time

What does this role do?

.NET Backend Engineers build APIs, services, and data layers with C#/.NET on Azure. Modern .NET engineers own the DevOps pipeline for their services — from containerization to cloud deployment and monitoring.

  • Build REST APIs and microservices with ASP.NET Core
  • Containerize .NET applications with Docker
  • Deploy to Azure Kubernetes Service with Helm charts
  • Implement CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions and Azure DevOps
  • Enforce code quality and security gates with SonarQube and Veracode
  • Monitor application health on Azure with Prometheus and Grafana

Industry Context

.NET Backend Engineers are among the most common developer roles in the enterprise market, particularly in Microsoft-aligned organizations using Azure. Increasingly, .NET developers are expected to own their application's deployment and monitoring pipeline.

"You build it, you run it" — .NET engineers who understand Docker, Kubernetes, and CI/CD are significantly more valuable than those who hand off to ops.

  • Most common in financial services, enterprise software, and Azure-heavy organizations
  • AZ-204 (Azure Developer Associate) is a valuable certification
  • Progression: Junior .NET Dev → Senior → Principal / Architect

Your 10-Step Roadmap

From version control through containers, Kubernetes, CI/CD, quality gates, security, and production monitoring — designed for modern .NET engineers.

01
🐙 GitHub FundamentalsFoundation

Git branching, pull requests, code review workflows, and repository management — the starting point for every developer's DevOps journey.

02
🐳 DockerContainerization

Containerize .NET applications: multi-stage Dockerfiles for .NET, ASP.NET runtime images, Docker Compose for local development, container networking, and ACR publishing.

03
☸️ KubernetesContainer Orchestration

Deploy .NET services to Kubernetes: Deployments, Services, ConfigMaps, Secrets, resource requests/limits, health probes, and rolling updates for .NET microservices.

04
☁️ Azure Basics + CoreAzure Platform

The Azure services .NET engineers use daily: App Services, Azure SQL, Cosmos DB, Key Vault, Service Bus, and the subscription and IAM model for deploying services securely.

05
⚡ GitHub ActionsCI/CD Pipelines

Build a CI/CD pipeline for .NET: dotnet build, test, publish → Docker build → push to ACR → deploy to AKS with kubectl or Helm. OIDC auth for Azure, no stored credentials.

06
🔵 SonarQubeCode Quality

Enforce .NET code quality in CI: SonarQube analysis with dotnet-sonarscanner, quality gates for test coverage and bug detection, and PR decoration for code review feedback.

07
🔷 Azure DevOpsEnterprise CI/CD

Enterprise delivery with Azure DevOps: YAML pipelines for .NET builds, Azure Artifacts for NuGet package management, and multi-stage release to AKS with approval gates.

08
🔐 Azure SecurityApplication Security

Secure .NET applications on Azure: managed identities, Key Vault references in .NET config, RBAC for service principals, network security for AKS, and Azure AD authentication.

09
🔍 VeracodeSecurity Testing

SAST and SCA for .NET: Veracode pipeline scan for critical security vulnerabilities, dependency risk management, and security-gated deployment workflows.

10
📊 Prometheus + GrafanaProduction Monitoring

Instrument .NET services with prometheus-net, expose custom metrics, build Grafana dashboards for request rate, error rate, latency, and set SLO-based alerting.

What You'll Master

💻 .NET / C# Backend 🐳 Docker Containerization ☸️ Kubernetes Deployment ⚡ CI/CD Pipelines 🔵 Code Quality Gates ☁️ Azure Cloud Services 🔐 Application Security 📦 NuGet Package Management 🔑 Managed Identity 📊 Application Monitoring

Tools You'll Use

💻
.NET / C#
🐳
Docker / ACR
☸️
Kubernetes
☁️
Azure
GitHub Actions
🔷
Azure DevOps
🔵
SonarQube
🔍
Veracode
🔑
Key Vault
📊
Grafana

What You'll Actually Build

Production .NET Microservice Delivery

Build a GitHub Actions pipeline that compiles a .NET 8 API → runs xUnit tests → SonarQube quality gate → Docker multi-stage build → pushes to ACR → deploys to AKS with Helm and zero downtime.

Secure Azure .NET Application

Build a .NET API that uses Managed Identity to authenticate to Azure SQL and Key Vault — no passwords in config, no service principal secrets in code, full RBAC-controlled access to Azure resources.

Application Observability Setup

Instrument a .NET API with prometheus-net custom metrics (request count, latency histogram, error rate), wire it to Prometheus, and build a Grafana dashboard with alerting for the on-call team.

Common Interview Questions

Fundamentals

How do you containerize a .NET 8 Web API application for production use?
What is a Managed Identity in Azure and why is it preferred over service principals?
How do you handle secrets in a .NET application deployed to AKS?

Intermediate

How do you design a CI/CD pipeline for a .NET microservice deployed to AKS?
How do you implement health checks for a .NET service running in Kubernetes?
How do you use Azure Key Vault references in .NET application configuration?

Scenario-based

Your .NET API response times have doubled in production. How do you diagnose the cause?
A SonarQube quality gate is blocking your release due to 0% test coverage on a new service. How do you handle this?
A Veracode scan found a SQL injection vulnerability in your .NET service. How do you remediate and prevent it from recurring?