.NET.
.NET is Microsoft's application platform, running C# and F# on a cross-platform runtime. It is most common in organisations with an existing Microsoft estate, where the platform, the identity provider and the database are already aligned and the cost of moving off it is higher than the cost of staying.
Where .NET fits on a long engagement.
Most .NET work sits on a system that predates the current team. The interesting question is rarely whether C# is the right language; it is whether the estate is on .NET Framework or on modern .NET, because that single fact decides whether a change is a routine edit or a migration project. A codebase still on Framework 4.8 cannot be containerised or run on Linux without work that nobody scoped.
The platform itself is unusually stable, which is why these systems survive so long. The risks are organisational rather than technical: a handful of people understand the domain logic, the build runs on a machine somebody configured years ago, and the test coverage stops at the service boundary. Those are the things worth fixing before the framework version.
What an assigned team does with .NET.
A .NET assignment is measured by how much of the estate a specialist can change unaccompanied. That curve is slow for the first two months and then steepens sharply, which is why rotating people through a .NET system costs far more than it appears to on a rate card.
The pattern that works is a small standing group that keeps the system moving while a second thread modernises pieces of it. That is normally set up as a dedicated development team on one agreement rather than as separate project engagements, because the modernisation work depends on the context the maintenance work builds.
What we use .NET for.
- Framework to modern .NET, incrementally Moving projects one at a time behind a shared build, so the system keeps shipping while the runtime underneath it changes.
- Business logic nobody can safely touch Characterisation tests written around existing behaviour first, so the rules are captured before anything is refactored.
- Integrating with the wider Microsoft estate Entra ID, SQL Server and internal APIs wired together without a bespoke identity layer that becomes its own maintenance problem.
How .NET capacity is assigned.
.NET specialists are assigned under outsource software development services. Where the estate is large enough that regressions are the real constraint, testing capacity is scoped at the same time rather than added later.
Tell us what your roadmap needs .NET for.
A service delivery manager replies with the disciplines we would assign, the monthly capacity and what the first month looks like.
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