Top 12 .NET Developer Skills to Put on Your Resume
In today’s tech job hunt, a sharp resume matters. .NET developers who surface the right skills—clearly, confidently—stand out fast. Show the breadth, show the depth, and make it obvious you can wrangle real-world complexity with composure.
.NET Developer Skills
1. C#
C# is a modern, object-oriented language from Microsoft for building everything from services and web apps to desktop tools and cloud-native systems atop the .NET platform.
Why It's Important
C# is the primary language of .NET. Its strong type system, async-first mindset, rich standard library, and evolving feature set make it the backbone for robust, secure, high-performance solutions across platforms.
How to Improve C# Skills
Go deeper than syntax. Think patterns, performance, readability, and safety.
Nail the core: types, generics, collections, exceptions, memory basics, delegates/events.
Use modern features: records, pattern matching, spans, nullable reference types, file-scoped namespaces, interpolated strings, and improved lambdas.
Asynchrony fluency: async/await, cancellation tokens, ConfigureAwait, and avoiding sync-over-async deadlocks.
LINQ mastery: expressive, minimal allocations, project only what you need, avoid premature ToList.
Design discipline: SOLID, clean boundaries, small focused types, testable seams.
Practice regularly: katas, interview-style challenges, small utilities. LeetCode, HackerRank—pick a lane and stay consistent.
Read code: well-known OSS libraries, runtime proposals, and samples. Emulate the good parts.
Build things: side projects, microservices, libraries. Ship. Iterate. Refine.
Profile early: benchmark hot paths; know when allocations bite and how to slice them down.
Validate with tests: unit tests and property-based checks to lock behavior in place.
Keep learning in small, relentless loops. The language moves quickly; so should you.
How to Display C# Skills on Your Resume
2. ASP.NET
ASP.NET (Core) is the framework for building modern, cloud-ready web apps, APIs, real-time endpoints, and services using C#, Razor, and the .NET runtime.
Why It's Important
It’s fast, battle-tested, and deeply integrated with the .NET ecosystem. From minimal APIs to full MVC to Razor Pages, you can scale from tiny utilities to enterprise systems without switching stacks.
How to Improve ASP.NET Skills
Pick the right model: Minimal APIs for lean services, MVC for structured apps, Razor Pages for page-centric flows.
Own the pipeline: middleware order, exception handling, logging, compression, and caching. Understand how requests flow.
Data access done right: EF Core best practices, connection pooling awareness, async all the way down.
Security first: authentication and authorization policies, data validation, antiforgery, HTTPS-only, headers that harden.
Asynchrony and scalability: avoid blocking calls, stream results, paginate, and rate-limit where it matters.
Testing discipline: integration tests with the TestServer, unit tests for controllers/handlers/filters.
DevOps flow: containerize, configure per-environment, automate CI/CD, health checks, readiness probes.
Observe everything: structured logs, tracing, metrics, and alerts that tell you when things drift.
Iterate with intent. Ship small slices, measure, improve.
How to Display ASP.NET Skills on Your Resume
3. MVC
MVC (Model–View–Controller) structures your app into clear roles: data and rules, UI, and the glue that coordinates requests. In .NET, it underpins clean, testable web applications.
Why It's Important
A strong separation of concerns shortens feedback loops, makes testing easier, and cuts the cost of change as apps grow.
How to Improve MVC Skills
Lean controllers: push logic into services and domain layers; keep controllers thin and focused.
ViewModels over entities: shape data for the UI; don’t leak persistence models to views.
Dependency injection: register clear interfaces, choose lifetimes wisely, avoid service locators.
Async everywhere: I/O-bound work should be asynchronous to keep threads free.
Caching that pays: response caching, memory caches, and cache busting strategies.
Routing clarity: consistent routes, attribute routing where it improves discoverability.
Model binding and validation: custom binders when needed, centralized validation with data annotations and FluentValidation-style patterns.
Secure by default: input validation, antiforgery, output encoding, content security policies.
Reusable UI: partials, view components, Tag Helpers to cut duplication.
Relentless refactoring: keep views tidy, extract components, prune dead code.
Small architectural disciplines compound into big wins.
How to Display MVC Skills on Your Resume
4. Entity Framework
Entity Framework Core (EF Core) is the ORM that maps your .NET objects to relational tables and back, handling queries, change tracking, and migrations.
Why It's Important
It accelerates development, reduces boilerplate, and keeps data access consistent. When used well, it’s both productive and performant.
How to Improve Entity Framework Skills
AsNoTracking for reads: skip tracking when you don’t update entities.
Project narrowly: select only required columns into DTOs/ViewModels.
Compiled queries: pre-compile hot queries to trim CPU overhead.
Batch updates: minimize round trips; group work where appropriate.
Loading discipline: prefer explicit/eager loading for predictable queries; be wary of N+1 via lazy loading.
Indexes matter: align database indexes with your most common filters and joins.
Clean models: avoid overcomplicated relationships; keep navigations meaningful.
Stay current: new EF Core versions often ship sizable performance gains.
Raw SQL when needed: for gnarly queries, handcraft the SQL and map results carefully.
Inspect SQL: log generated SQL and execution times; tune with facts, not vibes.
Measure, then optimize. The database will tell you what hurts.
How to Display Entity Framework Skills on Your Resume
5. LINQ
LINQ brings readable, expressive data querying straight into C#. Collections, EF Core, XML, custom providers—one idiom, many sources.
Why It's Important
It shrinks code, clarifies intent, and keeps transformations consistent across layers.
How to Improve LINQ Skills
Pick the right abstraction: IEnumerable for in-memory; IQueryable for provider-backed queries that translate server-side.
Defer wisely: understand deferred execution; don’t re-enumerate by accident.
Avoid premature materialization: hold off on ToList/ToArray until you must commit.
Project minimal shapes: anonymous types or DTOs with just the fields you need.
Composition over monoliths: break complex queries into named steps for clarity and reuse.
Be allocation-aware: prefer methods that avoid needless copies; watch closures in hot loops.
Compiled queries with EF Core: speed up repeated database calls.
PLINQ prudence: parallelize CPU-heavy work only when order doesn’t matter and contention is low.
Test with real sizes: small sets lie; profile on realistic data volumes.
Readability first: the next reader—including you—is the first customer.
Great LINQ code reads like a story and runs like a racecar.
How to Display LINQ Skills on Your Resume
6. SQL Server
Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database engine with deep tooling, strong security, and features for transactional and analytical workloads.
Why It's Important
Most serious .NET apps ride on relational data. Knowing SQL Server means faster queries, safer data, smoother deployments.
How to Improve SQL Server Skills
Design for queries: normalize thoughtfully, add covering indexes, avoid over-wide keys.
Write tight SQL: filter early, project fewer columns, watch join cardinalities.
Parameterization: reduce injection risk and promote plan reuse.
Query Store and plans: review regressions, force a good plan when necessary, fix root causes.
Statistics and maintenance: update stats, rebuild or reorganize indexes on sane schedules.
Locking and isolation: choose appropriate isolation levels; embrace optimistic concurrency when it fits.
Monitor continuously: wait stats, top resource consumers, deadlocks, long-running queries.
Connection hygiene: use pooling, batch commands, keep transactions short.
Security basics: least privilege, encrypted connections, secrets outside code.
Bridge from .NET: minimize chatty calls, bulk copy for large imports, stream results where possible.
The fastest query is the one you never run. The second fastest is indexed well.
How to Display SQL Server Skills on Your Resume
7. .NET
.NET (the unified platform formerly known as .NET Core) is a cross-platform, open-source runtime and SDK for building high-performance apps on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Why It's Important
One platform, many app types: web, APIs, services, desktop, mobile, cloud, and IoT. It’s fast, productive, and constantly improving.
How to Improve .NET Skills
Understand the host: generic host, configuration providers, logging, dependency injection.
Performance mindset: measure with benchmarks, minimize allocations, prefer spans and pooling in hot paths.
Modern web stack: minimal APIs, endpoint filters, source generators when appropriate.
Background work: hosted services, timers, queues, graceful shutdown.
Security: secrets management, data protection, hashing and encryption practices, secure defaults.
Containers: trim images, multistage builds, read-only filesystems, health probes.
Native AOT (where it fits): smaller, faster startup services and tools with ahead-of-time compilation.
Testing at multiple layers: unit, integration, and contract tests with CI gates.
Keep up with LTS: adopt LTS releases to balance stability and new features.
Ship often: short cycles expose issues early and sharpen instincts.
Proficiency comes from repetition plus curiosity.
How to Display .NET Skills on Your Resume
8. Blazor
Blazor lets you build interactive web UIs with C# and Razor—running on the server (Blazor Server) or in the browser via WebAssembly (Blazor WebAssembly).
Why It's Important
It unlocks full-stack .NET development on the web, reusing skills, models, and libraries without defaulting to JavaScript for every interaction.
How to Improve Blazor Skills
Choose the right mode: Server for instant load and small payloads; WebAssembly for offline and edge scenarios.
Render smart: avoid over-rendering; use ShouldRender, key fragments, and virtualization for large lists.
State done right: cascading values sparingly, scoped services for per-user state, persistent storage where needed.
Component boundaries: small, reusable components with clear parameters and event callbacks.
Interop carefully: JS interop for gaps, but keep calls coarse-grained to reduce chatter.
Security: protect endpoints, validate user input server-side, and guard against XSS with proper encoding.
Assets and size: trim assemblies, link aggressively, lazy-load features for faster startup.
Testing: component tests and end-to-end flows to keep UI stable.
Smooth UIs are deliberate, not accidental.
How to Display Blazor Skills on Your Resume
9. WPF
Windows Presentation Foundation is a desktop UI framework for Windows that pairs XAML with powerful data binding, styles, and templating.
Why It's Important
For Windows-first apps requiring rich, tailored interfaces, WPF remains a strong, proven choice with mature tooling and patterns.
How to Improve WPF Skills
MVVM everywhere: separate view logic, keep code-behind light, bind to testable ViewModels.
Data binding discipline: INotifyPropertyChanged, ObservableCollection, and binding diagnostics to spot issues quickly.
Virtualization: VirtualizingStackPanel and virtualization-friendly controls for big lists.
Layout sanity: avoid deep nesting; prefer Grids over stack-heavy structures; reduce visual complexity.
Resource hygiene: merge dictionaries intentionally, freeze Freezables, share brushes and styles to cut memory churn.
Graphics and effects: minimize expensive effects and animations on the UI thread; batch updates.
Async to keep UI alive: offload I/O and heavy work; marshal updates back to the dispatcher.
Modern .NET where possible: run WPF on current .NET for better performance and deployment options.
Testing and profiling: measure render time, binding costs, and memory usage to spot regressions early.
Responsive desktop apps start with restraint and end with polish.
How to Display WPF Skills on Your Resume
10. Azure
Azure is Microsoft’s cloud platform for compute, storage, networking, databases, AI, and more—deeply aligned with .NET.
Why It's Important
It provides the building blocks for resilient, scalable systems and a clean path from local dev to global deployment.
How to Improve Azure Skills
Core services: App Service, Azure Functions, Containers, Storage, and Azure SQL—know when to use which.
IaC: define infrastructure with Bicep or Terraform; version it; review it.
Networking basics: VNets, subnets, private endpoints, and firewalls to keep traffic tight.
Identity: Managed identities, role-based access control, and least privilege everywhere.
Observability: Application Insights, Logs, Metrics, dashboards, and alerts that matter.
DevOps pipeline: automated builds, tests, and deployments with approvals and rollbacks.
Cost control: budgets, alerts, right-sizing plans, spot instances where safe.
AKS and microservices: if you need orchestration, understand clusters, ingress, autoscaling, and secrets.
Resilience: availability zones, backups, geo-replication, and chaos drills.
Cloud confidence comes from repeatable deployments and measurable results.
How to Display Azure Skills on Your Resume
11. Web API
Web API in .NET is the toolkit for building HTTP services—RESTful endpoints, JSON by default, with first-class routing, filters, and model binding.
Why It's Important
APIs are the backbone of modern systems. With ASP.NET Core, you get speed, clarity, and the flexibility to serve browsers, mobile apps, other services, and anything that speaks HTTP.
How to Improve Web API Skills
Minimal APIs or MVC: pick the simplest approach that stays maintainable as you grow.
Contracts and docs: OpenAPI/Swagger for discoverability; keep schemas versioned and stable.
Security: OAuth2/OIDC via the Microsoft identity platform or a standards-compliant provider; enforce HTTPS; add rate limiting and input validation.
Performance: async everywhere, compression, caching, pagination, conditional requests, ETags.
Error handling: problem details responses, global exception filters or middleware, clear semantics.
Versioning strategy: route or header-based; deprecate loudly and kindly.
Testing: contract tests and integration tests to protect public behavior.
Observability: correlation IDs, structured logs, tracing across services.
Design APIs for humans first; machines will follow.
How to Display Web API Skills on Your Resume
12. SignalR
SignalR adds real-time communication to your .NET apps—live updates, notifications, and multi-user sync without polling.
Why It's Important
It makes apps feel alive. Chats, dashboards, collaborative tools, streaming updates—all with minimal ceremony.
How to Improve SignalR Skills
Prefer WebSockets: ensure the environment supports it; fall back only when necessary.
Scale out smartly: use Azure SignalR Service or a backplane so multiple servers share connections cleanly.
Message shape: send deltas or batches, not chatter; compress where it makes sense.
Strongly typed hubs: safer contracts, easier refactoring.
Connection resilience: automatic reconnect, backoff strategies, idempotent handlers.
Security: authenticate hubs, authorize groups, validate payloads.
Monitor: track connection counts, message rates, latencies, and errors to spot trouble early.
Real-time is a superpower—use it with restraint and purpose.
How to Display SignalR Skills on Your Resume
