Development Team Lead (.NET)

The Development Team Lead (.NET) is responsible for providing hands-on technical leadership, mentoring, and delivery oversight for a team building enterprise applications on the Microsoft .NET platform.

This role blends deep .NET expertise with people leadership, Agile delivery, and cross-functional collaboration.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership

• Lead the design and development of applications using C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET Core, ASP.NET MVC, Web API, LINQ, and related .NET technologies.
• Guide modernization of legacy VB.NET, WCF, and .NET Framework applications and services into modern C#, ASP.NET Core, and .NET 8+ API architectures.
• Define and lead migration strategies for legacy WCF/SOAP services, including service decomposition, API design, security modernization, backward compatibility, and transition to RESTful and event-driven architectures.
• Provide technical leadership for both the ongoing enhancement of existing WCF-based applications and the strategic modernization of those platforms to ASP.NET Core and cloud-ready architectures.
• Evaluate and implement modern integration patterns using REST APIs, microservices, Azure Service Bus, and cloud-native services as part of application modernization initiatives.
• Perform and enforce high-quality code reviews, ensuring adherence to coding standards, clean architecture, and SOLID principles.
• Break down complex technical requirements into well-scoped stories and tasks.
• Work with Architects to align on technical patterns, integration approaches, and long-term platform direction.

People Leadership & Coaching

• Provide day-to-day support, mentorship, and coaching to developers across varying experience levels.
• Foster a positive, inclusive culture centered on learning, ownership, and accountability.
• Conduct regular 1:1s and support career development, skills progression, and performance management.

Agile Delivery & Planning

• Lead sprint planning, backlog readiness, estimation, and throughput optimization.
• Facilitate daily stand-ups, reviews, and retrospectives; remove team impediments rapidly.
• Coordinate dependencies with QA, DevOps, and other teams; ensure release readiness and change control.
• Partner with the Delivery Manager (or act in that capacity where needed) to maintain predictable sprint throughput and reliable release timelines.

Quality & Reliability

• Ensure strong testing practices: unit testing (xUnit/NUnit/MSTest), integration testing, API testing, and automation support and high code coverage targets.
• Collaborate with QA to embed quality in the workflow; drive shift-left testing practices.
• Validate that applications meet non-functional requirements such as performance, resilience, and security.
• Collaborate with DevOps to improve CI/CD pipelines, environment stability, and release automation.

System & Application Ownership

• Provide technical leadership for legacy service modernization initiatives, including assessment, refactoring, migration planning, risk management, and production rollout of WCF-to-.NET Core API transformations.
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex issues across environments (DEV/QA/UAT/PROD).
• Lead root cause analysis for production incidents and identify long-term fixes.
• Monitor application health using Application Insights, logging frameworks, and dashboards.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Product Owners to refine user stories, clarify requirements, and provide estimates.
• Work closely with DevOps for CI/CD enhancements and infrastructure needs (Azure preferred).
• Collaborate with QA Lead, Architecture, and Security teams to ensure compliance with standards.

Qualifications

Required

• 8+ years of professional software development experience with .NET Framework, .NET Core, and enterprise application development.
• 2+ years in a people leader role.
• Strong expertise in C#, with hands-on experience developing, enhancing, supporting, and modernizing applications built on VB.NET, WCF, and the .NET Framework.
• Hands-on experience designing, developing, supporting, and modernizing WCF/SOAP services, including execution of WCF-to-ASP.NET Core Web API migration initiatives, service contract analysis, authentication modernization, API versioning, and integration modernization.
• Strong understanding of enterprise integration patterns, including SOAP, REST, messaging, service-oriented architecture (SOA), and microservices.
• Experience maintaining and enhancing enterprise applications built on WCF, SOAP, and .NET Framework, including troubleshooting, performance tuning, and delivery of new business functionality.
• Experience building REST APIs, microservices, or modular applications using ASP.NET Core/Web API.
• Proficiency with Git, CI/CD pipelines (Azure DevOps/GitHub Actions), unit testing frameworks, and design patterns.
• Experience working in Agile environments (Scrum/Kanban) with strong facilitation skills.
• Demonstrated ability to lead teams, influence architecture, and deliver complex initiatives.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and problem-solving skills.