How I Found My Way Into .NET Development

After finishing my A Levels, I was at a crossroads. Like many students, I was trying to figure out what was next. I had always felt a pull toward IT and digital creation, but for a while I set those interests aside to focus on exams.

At school I loved experimenting. I made animations, 3D models, short videos, and small games. I toyed with Python and even used Visual Basic to build simple programs. Creating things in the digital world felt natural and fun. Still, when I chose the Bio stream for A Levels, I paused those hobbies to concentrate on school.

Even so, my interest in technology never really went away. Halfway through A Levels it became clear that the path I was on was not where I wanted to stay. I wanted to build and solve problems with software.

While waiting for university results, I started researching IT degrees and found the BSc (Hons) in Information Technology at the University of Moratuwa. It seemed like the right fit.

During the gap before university started, I enrolled in several online courses. The Web Developer Bootcamp 2021 on Udemy helped me understand Node.js, APIs, and the basics of front-end and back-end development. I also took cloud engineering classes to get a feel for deployments and infrastructure. By the time I started university, I already had a foundation in web development.

The turning point: my first encounter with .NET

In my second year we worked on an industry-based group project. Every group had a mentor from industry, and I led my team under the guidance of Mr. Nishant Wickramarathna, a Senior Software Engineer at 99x.

He suggested we use .NET with MS SQL for the backend, and React for the front end. Our project, AssetFlow, an enterprise asset management system, became my first serious exposure to .NET.

That was not my first time seeing .NET. Before the project I had done freelance work that introduced me to C# and .NET:

E-Apartments - a desktop application for apartment management.

OZQ Cart - an e-commerce website built with .NET technologies.

Those projects gave me a head start. When AssetFlow started, I was ready to learn and contribute rather than starting from zero.

Growing with .NET

After AssetFlow, I kept building and learning. My internship used different technologies - Spring Boot, Angular, and Flutter - but I continued to explore .NET in parallel. I learned about:

C# language features and modern idioms.

Entity Framework and data access patterns.

Dependency injection and clean architecture principles.

I also kept improving my skills in web frameworks like Next.js and React, which helped me design front-end interfaces that paired well with .NET backends.

Where I am today

Today I work as a .NET Backend Developer at IGT1 Lanka, contributing to Sitecore projects. I work with the Sitecore ASP.NET SDK and the Sitecore MVP website. My day to day includes adding features, improving performance, and working with enterprise coding standards.

Working in enterprise environments expanded my view of software development. I moved from writing features to thinking about design patterns, scalability, and long term maintainability.

Looking back

When I look back the path makes sense. From tinkering with animations and Python scripts to building enterprise systems with .NET, it has been a journey of following a small spark and turning it into a skill.

I did not take a straight path. I paused my passion at times and took detours. Each project, each review, and each late night debugging session added up.

This is just the beginning. There are many more problems to solve and plenty of tools to learn. If you are starting out, try small projects, pick one stack to explore deeply, and keep building.

If you have questions about .NET or want to discuss a project, feel free to reach out via the contact page on this site.