• Origin story: .NET was launched in Feb 2002 by Microsoft, originally called NGWS (Next Generation Web Services).
• Widely popular: According to Daxx, there are about 6 million .NET developers in the world and since it is adopted by most of the tech companies in the world, the demand for .NET developers is ever rising.
• Top companies using .NET: Companies like Dell, Accenture, TCS, and HCL use .NET.

• Large Library: .NET has a large collection of predefined class libraries that has support for simple and complex data structures. You can rely on the work of hundreds of other developers and pull already-written code into your own programs.
• Environment: .NET is a free platform that provides a programming environment for most software development phases. Best for the companies that look for features like web-based services, desktop software, and cloud infrastructure support.

The following are some of the tools used by .NET developers at various stages of development:

1. .NET Reflector

It is a decompiler, disassembler, and static analyzer for the .NET framework and helps developers understand and debug their .NET code.

2. Stackify Prefix

This is a lightweight code profiler tool for .NET developers which allows developers to retrieve performance data. It can also troubleshoot web requests that are slow and find slow queries.

3. Postman

It is an open-source collaboration platform for testing APIs, and an HTTP client used across the world for designing, developing, and testing APIs.

4. SonarQube

SonarQube is an open-source static code review tool that helps in maintaining the .NET code quality by performing automatic reviews with static analysis of code to detect bugs, code smells on the code.

5. PerfCollect and PerfView

These tools are used to trace the performance of the machine to figure out the root cause. PerfView is a free performance-analysis tool that helps isolate CPU and memory-related performance issues.PerfCollect is a bash script that uses Linux Trace Toolkit used to collect events written from the runtime.

Below are some key points that we at Flexiple have learned through trial and error - a process of filtering through over 15,000 developers. You can use these in your process to hire .NET developers.

• Years of software development experience: Be specific about the technology you’re looking for and the number of years of experience needed. A proxy to years of experience can be the number of production-level apps worked on.
• Expertise in a specific language: All languages have their peculiarities and nuances. While good .NET developers can pick up other languages, it’s a plus point to hire a developer who already has expertise in it.
• Type of products built in the past: You can filter out applications based on the candidate’s past work if you want someone who has a fair idea about how things work in a product like yours.
• Exposure to specific industries:  Developers who have built products in certain industries will already know key aspects of laying the foundation for a great product and will be able to predict possible problems.
• Experience working remotely: Hiring someone who has worked remotely in the past is an added benefit as they have front-hand experience of everything right from how the contracts work to communication and from timelines to deliverables.
• Strong communication: An essential thing to look at when hiring a freelancer is excellent communication skills. Since all the interaction happens online, a freelancer needs to be able to seek to understand and be direct in their language.

You can check out a more detailed .NET developer job description here.

Now that you have made a quality JD, it can still be tricky to evaluate the skills of your applicants when you hire .NET developers. To help you with that, we have created a pool of questions that a good .NET developer should be comfortable with. You can check out some related interview questions on this page.

It is important to note that the ability to answer these questions doesn't imply that you have a top quality candidate. But it definitely is a big step in that direction.

To help you navigate through these questions, we’ve categorized the interview questions in 3 parts:

A. Basic concepts: Includes all basic concepts used across languages. This section will give you an understanding of how strong their programming foundation is.

B. Advanced concepts: Includes all concepts that someone with higher expertise should know.

C. DS/Algorithm questions: To test the logical capability of the candidate.

A. Basic concepts

Coming soon!

B. Advanced concepts

Coming soon!

C. Data Structure/ Algorithm

1. Given a string containing just the characters '(', ')', '{', '}', '[' and ']', determine if the input string is valid. An input string is valid if: Open brackets must be closed by the same type of brackets. Open brackets must be closed in the correct order. Note that an empty string is also considered valid.

class ValidParenthesesFunc {
    func isValid(_ s: String) -> Bool {
        var stc = [Character]()

        for char in s {
            if char == "(" || char == "[" || char == "{" {
                stc.append(char)
            } else if char == ")" {
                guard stc.count != 0 && stc.removeLast() == "(" else {
                    return false
                }
            } else if char == "]" {
                guard stc.count != 0 && stc.removeLast() == "[" else {
                    return false
                }
            } else if char == "}" {
                guard stc.count != 0 && stc.removeLast() == "{" else {
                    return false
                }
            }
        }
        return stc.isEmpty
    }
}

The above code will input 0(false). 

2.  Write a program to find whether a string or number is palindrome or not.

function palindrome(myString){
    var removeChar = myString.replace(/[^A-Z0-9]/ig, "").toLowerCase();
    var checkPalindrome = removeChar.split('').reverse().join('');
        if(removeChar === checkPalindrome){
          document.write("<div>"+ myString + " is a Palindrome<div>");
        }else{
          document.write("<div>" + myString + " is not a Palindrome <div>");
        }
}
palindrome('"Oh who was it I saw, oh who?"')
palindrome('"Madam"')
palindrome('"Star Wars"')
palindrome('"7,10,7,8,9"')

The output of the above code will be: 

"Oh who was it I saw, oh who?" is a Palindrome
"Madam" is a Palindrome
"Star Wars" is not a Palindrome.
"7,10,7,8,9" is not a Palindrome.

3. What will the output of the following code be?

var x = 10;
var y = 5;
var z = 3;
if (x / y / z)
     document.write("hi");
else
    document.write("hello");

The answer is A, the floating-point division in JS returns a non zero value = 0.66 which evaluates to 
true and outputs ‘hi’.

That is everything you need to know about hiring a freelance .Net developer. As discussed, it isn't easy to find a quality freelance .Net developer but this guide makes the process easier for you. To offload the entire hiring process, reach out to us at Flexiple. We've designed a high-quality, 6-step screening process to find the top 1%, freelance developers. You can find the best freelance .Net developers here. We've already served over a hundred clients, earning great reviews for the quality of service.

Lastly, to quickly summarize the process to hire .NET developers for you:

• Note your project requirements and hire accordingly. Do not go for the lowest or the highest-paid developer.
• Don’t hire without vetting- consider asking questions right from the basics to advanced to logical questions.
• Look for companies like Flexiple that help you find the perfect fit.

Happy hiring! :)