.NET developers
Rates, hiring difficulty, a hiring guide and interview questions for a .NET developer: everything in one place.
Overview
.NET developers build enterprise applications, APIs, and cloud services using C# on the modern .NET platform. .NET has evolved from a Windows-only framework to a cross-platform, high-performance runtime that competes with Java and Go for backend workloads. They work with ASP.NET Core for web services, Entity Framework for data access, and Azure for cloud deployment.
.NET is one of the hardest stacks to hire for right now. Demand far outstrips the number of developers who use it, so expect long searches and to pay at the top of the range.
Where to find more talent: TypeScript developers (6% want to move into .NET).
Retention: 60% of developers who use .NET want to keep using it, and 6% of those who do not use it yet want to start.
Open roles per 1,000 developers Full ranking →
US job postings (30 days) divided by developers who use each stack. Higher means harder to hire.
What a .NET developer costs
Contract and salary benchmarks for the US.
Contract rate
C2C or 1099, from W-2 hourly × 1.3–1.6 for tax, benefits and overhead.
W-2 equivalent
BLS median for US software developers ($135,980), adjusted -10% for .NET using Stack Overflow 2025 pay data (1,370 respondents).
Full-time contractor cost
Per year at 40 hours a week.
Agencies typically bill 2–3× W-2 pay. See what a full project costs, compare W-2, 1099 and C2C, or check rates by state.
How to hire a .NET developer
What good looks like, and what should worry you.
Typical projects
- Enterprise API services with ASP.NET Core
- Line-of-business applications and internal tools
- Azure cloud-native services (Functions, App Service, AKS)
- Legacy .NET Framework modernization to .NET 8+
- Desktop applications with WPF, MAUI, or Blazor
Team setup
.NET developers are most common in enterprise environments and Microsoft-stack companies. If your infrastructure is already Azure-heavy, .NET developers will be most productive. For startups, .NET is viable but the talent pool skews toward enterprise experience — make sure candidates are comfortable with startup pace and less formal processes. A senior .NET developer can lead a team of 3-4 in an enterprise setting, handling architecture and code review.
What to look for
- Modern .NET (6+) experience, not just .NET Framework — they're fundamentally different platforms
- Strong C# skills: async/await, LINQ, pattern matching, records, nullable reference types
- Entity Framework Core proficiency and understanding of when to use raw SQL instead
- Experience with dependency injection — it's built into ASP.NET Core and central to the architecture
- Can deploy to Linux/containers, not just Windows/IIS
Red flags
- Only knows .NET Framework and hasn't worked with .NET 6+ — the ecosystem has moved on
- Treats Visual Studio as mandatory — modern .NET development works with any editor and the CLI
- Over-architects everything with abstractions: repository pattern wrapping Entity Framework wrapping SQL
- No experience with non-Microsoft tools — healthy .NET teams use PostgreSQL, Linux, GitHub Actions
- Can't discuss performance: span, memory pooling, minimal APIs vs controller-based APIs
Interview questions
Questions that separate strong candidates from people who just list the keyword.
- What's the difference between .NET Framework and modern .NET? What does migration involve?
- How do you structure an ASP.NET Core application? Walk me through your project layout and dependency injection setup.
- Explain async/await in C# — what happens under the hood, and what are the common pitfalls?
- When would you use Entity Framework Core vs Dapper vs raw ADO.NET?
- How do you approach testing in .NET? What frameworks and patterns do you use?
Hiring trend
How often .NET appears in startup hiring posts over time.
Hacker News “Who’s Hiring” posts mentioning .NET, by year (2015–Feb 2025). Peak: 2017 with 568 posts. HN hiring overall has fallen since 2019, so compare stacks rather than reading absolute numbers. Its share of current US job postings changed +67% since April 2026.
Similar stacks
Related skills, with their rates and hiring difficulty.
Need .NET developers?
We take on contract .NET work, from one developer joining your team to building the whole product. Tell us what you need and we'll reply by email.
- MVPs and new products
- Developers for your existing team
- Rescuing stalled projects
- AI features
Questions
How much does a .NET developer cost?
Contract .NET developers typically bill $77–94/hr (C2C or 1099). The W-2 equivalent salary is about $122,800. Agencies usually charge 2–3× W-2 pay.
Is it hard to hire .NET developers?
.NET is rated Severe on our hiring difficulty index (84/100, #7 of 29), with about 47 open US roles for every 1,000 developers who use it.
Should I hire a full-time .NET developer or use a contractor?
If the work is ongoing and core to your product, hire. If you need to start quickly, cover a gap, or the role is hard to fill, a contractor or agency gets work moving while you search.