How To Hire a .NET Developer in 2023

If you’re looking to hire a .NET developer to create an app or website to increase your brand awareness, the process is simple if you follow the right steps. Even if you have no programming experience, you can easily find and hire a .NET developer to create the perfect website or application for you by reading this guide below.

Why you need to test a .Net developer’s skills before you make your hiring decision

Testing a .Net developer’s skills allows you to get an accurate idea of the developer’s knowledge and experience level in developing applications using the .Net framework. This will help you make an informed decision about the best candidate for the position. Not only that but, it gives you the opportunity to assess the developer’s communication skills, problem-solving abilities, and overall fit for the role. By testing a .Net developer’s skills, you can ensure that you are investing in a skilled and competent professional who will be able to successfully complete the tasks you assign them.

By hiring a .NET developer, you will save time and money by getting the same results with less code. .NET developers come in handy for deployment.

NET Developer Skills

In the table below, you’ll find the skills needed for a .NET developer depending on the level of experience you’re looking to hire:

Level – Experience	Skills – Knowledge
Junior-level	.NET and its internals (JIT, CLR, GAC), Web services, C#, VN.NET, Asp.NET, OOP principles, HTML, CSS, Visual Studio.NET, JQuery, JavaScript, Angular JS, SQL.
Mid-level	All the above and Bootstrap experience, ASP.NET, XML, HTML, CSS, experience working with AngularJS.
Senior-level	All the above and ASP.MVC, .NET MVC, .NET Web API frameworks, strong debugging skills, web app development proficiency, deep knowledge of C#, Agile environment familiarity, knowledge of MYSQL, experience in developing highload systems.

These are the main responsibilities of a .NET developer:

• Design and development of software.
• Prepare test-based applications for .NET apps.
• Programming .NET applications.
• Monitor the diverse system activities and provide support.
• Enhance existing systems.
• Identify existing problems and prepare action plans to improve and solve them.
• Design of interfaces and components.
• Create technical specifications and test plans.

How to Hire a .Net Developer?

The IT recruitment industry is full of sharks ready to attack when they see a talented developer. It might sound like an exaggeration, but hiring developers is getting harder every year, mostly because many of them already have jobs as there is high demand.  According to a Stack Overflow Developer Survey (90,000 developers were surveyed), only 6.4% are currently unemployed and looking for a job.

And a survey conducted by Indeed found out that out of 1,000 tech hiring managers and recruiters, 9 out of 10 (86%) said hiring technical talent is challenging, and over a third (36%) said it is very challenging.

We don’t want to scare you, but those are the facts. Fortunately, there are key strategies you can implement to hire a .NET developer successfully:

1. Write a Clear Job Ad  

Writing a job ad for a lot of hiring managers is the least of their worries. They think that with a 2,000 words job description, cool words like ‘’tech magician’’ or ‘’code master’’, they will set the bait that will attract candidates. Little do they know that a weird lexicon tends to scare candidates away.  

When you write your job description, you need to be clear about why you need a .NET developer and explain it in the description. Make sure to be as clear as possible because this will avoid other types of candidates from applying. You don’t want to waste time interviewing someone who didn’t have the skills or capacities for that position.  

Advice: Keep it clean and simple.

2. Look in the Right Places

If you want a full-time .NET developer, are you sure that looking for them in freelancing platforms is a good idea?

Freelancers are a good idea if you need a developer for one small project or something temporary. You might think that because they charge a low salary, you win the jackpot from hiring them. However, that low salary comes with a price: quality. If you need a developer who will devote to your company besides having the skills and capacities, then freelancing platforms are not the best option you have.

You can find talented full-time developers through remote recruitment agencies, job boards, or internal hiring.

3. Ask the right interview questions  

Tech interviews require preparation. Depending on the role, you need to figure out whether whiteboarding tests, theoretical questions, or a small project will be the right way to evaluate your candidate’s knowledge.

We strongly advise that if you have no clue about .NET or have zero programming/tech background ask for help. You can have a cheat sheet or something as a guide, but only experts can separate the great candidates from the excellent ones.

4. Prioritize soft skills as much as hard skills

Asking the right questions is not only about hard skills. For technical roles, it’s fundamental that candidates have specific knowledge in determining areas and topics. You can’t hire a .NET developer that has no clue about how ASP.NET works. However, hard skills are not the only thing that matters.

Have you ever dealt with a terrible client? Someone that is never happy with what you do and that every time you talk to them has a new problem for you? A bad hire can be like that client; instead of helping you solve issues, they bring more problems. And avoiding this type of employee is possible by prioritizing soft skills during interviews. What soft skills do you value the most? Figure them out and create questions that can help you identify those skills.

5. Look for remote developers all over the world

The ability to work remotely is one of the best strategies to attract talented developers. Now that the work has gone remote, businesses are adapting and embracing flexibility. Hiring remotely will enable you to access a wider pool of talent and even reduce your costs, as you can hire candidates that live in places where the cost of living is lower.

If you want to hire a .NET developer, offer them something they can’t refuse: the opportunity to work remotely. A survey conducted by Dice discovered that the top two things tech job seekers want the most are 1) Healthcare benefits and 2) The ability to work remotely. 

The interview questions to ask when interviewing a .Net developer

1. What is the difference between a while and for loop? Give a .NET syntax for both types

Every developer you are looking to hire should know the difference between a while and for loop as they are very frequently used any time a unit of code must repeatedly be executed. The for loop is used when the number of iterations is known, whereas the while loop should be utilized until a given statement become true.

An example of this syntax in VB.NET is below.

While loop:

While condition [is True]

'statements

End While

for loop:

For counter [As datatype] = start To end [ Step step]

'statements

Next [ counter ]

2. Explain what .NET web services are

Almost every single application that your .NET developer codes will need to access the web. .NET web services are “reusable components that allow developers to publish an application’s function over the internet to make it accessible and directly interactable with other applications and objects online.”

Web services use the standard web protocols and data formats, such as HTTP and XML, so they can connect across numerous platforms and languages. With ASP.NET your programmers can develop web services, and the .NET framework has built-in classes that are made to build and consume web services.

3. Explain what a delegate is in .NET

The .NET programmer who you’re interviewing should be able to explain that using a delegate lets the developer encapsulate a reference to a method inside a delegate object, similar to a pointer in C and C++. Then, the delegate object can be given code that can call the reference method without needing to know which method will be invoked at compile time.

Additionally, delegates can be used to create custom events within a class. Here’s an example:

public delegate void FooDelegate ();

class FooClass

{

// custom event

Public event FooDelegate FooEvent;

}

FooClass FooObj = new FooClass ()

FooObj.FooEvent += new FooDelegate ();

4. What is the difference between managed and unmanaged code?

The main goal of this question is to understand if your potential .NET developer to hire understands CLR, which is a major portion of the .NET framework. The CLR provides functionalities that are important for development like memory management and garbage collection and runs managed code, like Visual Basic.NET.

Because of this, the manage code is platform-independent because it runs within the CLR instead of the operating system of the machine using the application. Languages like C or C++ produce unmanaged code, so the CLR doesn’t provide this functionality with them. However, unmanaged code is still used in .NET, such as in COM components, ActiveX interfaces, and Win32 API functions.

5. What is Inheritance?

Inheritance is one of the most relevant concepts in OOP, along with encapsulation and polymorphism. Inheritance allows developers to create new classes that reuse, extend and modify the behavior defined in other classes. All this enables code reuse and speeds up development. Developers are able to write and debug one class only once, and then reuse that code as the foundation for the new classes. 

6. What is the difference between an abstract class and an interface in .NET?

An abstract class provides a partial implementation for functionality and some abstract/virtual members that have to be implemented by the inheriting entities. It can declare fields as well. The interface, on the other hand, declares a contract or behavior that implementing classes should have.

In other words, an Abstract class allows you to create functionalities that subclasses can also implement. An interface will only allow you to define functionality but not implement it.

.NET Framework Overview

And .NET framework is the original implementation of .NET that supports running websites, services, apps, and more on Windows. This framework includes 3 application models:

1. WPF: Windows Presentation Foundation is a UI framework used by developers for creating graphical interfaces mainly for desktop client apps on Windows OS. 

2. Window Forms: Mostly used to develop desktop apps that contain rich graphics. 

3. ASP.NET: Used to develop dynamic websites and web applications.  

Main Benefits of Building Your Business Web App with .NET

Platform independence: .NET framework is independent, and it supports almost all the platforms. Your .NET developer can create applications that support various operating systems such as Android, iOS, or Windows.

Supports many languages: .NET is currently supporting 44 languages – the developer has the freedom to choose the language of their preference to develop an application.

Safe and reliable application: .NET is by excellence on the most secure frameworks in the market. It will help you build a highly scalable, stable, compatible, and secure application.

Variety of tools and editors: The .NET platform has many options of IDE’s that developers can use – with the help of Microsoft Visual Studio – to organize their workflow or solve specific problems.  

Extensive community: As mentioned previously, .NET has gained popularity over the past few years, and it currently has a community of more than two million developers. This means that if your developer faces any problem or difficulty, there’s always someone who can help them and provide solutions.

Find the best .Net developer with DistantJob

Now you understand that .NET can help make your developers write code much more quickly and efficiently, saving you time and, ultimately, money. It also assists with security and portability and has strong support because of its relationship with Microsoft.

These hiring steps and interview questions will help you make sure that you hire a .NET developer who can bring experience and skills to the table. However, interviewing about a language you don’t know can be confusing and tedious.

You can find .NET developers through freelancing platforms, job boards, or by looking through social media platforms. However, this will require you to spend a lot of time trying to find the perfect match. 

At DistantJob, as an IT remote staffing agency, we can help you find a qualified, guaranteed expert without the pain of searching and interviewing to join your team. You tell us what type of candidate you need, and in less than a month, you’ll be having a skilled full-time remote dot NEt developer ready to start working with you.