Top .NET Developers & Contributors To Follow
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  • Writer's pictureAhmed Tarek
    • Jan 12, 2022
    • 14 min read

Top .NET Developers & Contributors To Follow

Updated: Apr 17

List of top .NET developers and contributors to connect with and follow to learn and gain new skills.


List of top DotNet (.NET) developers and contributors to connect with and follow to learn and gain new skills. Code Coding Programming Development Software Engineering Architecture Best Practice Design
Photo by Nubelson Fernandes on Unsplash

As a Software Engineer, one of the most effective ways to grow on the technical level and gain new skills, is to always keep yourself surrounded by great calibers whom you can learn from.


That’s why in this article I will provide you with a list of the top famous .NET developers who are well known for their great contributions in the .NET software world.


To make the best use of this list, you can connect with and follow the great people mentioned here and I am sure you would learn a lot.


Note: The list is ordered alphabetically.


 

Anders Hejlsberg



According to Wikipedia:

Anders Hejlsberg (/ˈhaɪlzbɜːrɡ/, born 2 December 1960) is a Danish software engineer who co-designed several programming languages and development tools. He was the original author of Turbo Pascal and the chief architect of Delphi. He currently works for Microsoft as the lead architect of C# and core developer on TypeScript.

Anders is a Co-author of The C# Programming Language.



 

Bil Simser



According to Microsoft:

Bil Simser is an Enterprise Solutions Architect with over 15 years in software development. He has helped build many large-scale mission critical systems along the way. In his role as a mentor, he guides clients on how to implement development standards and guidelines, evaluates and recommends new tools and technologies, and helps teams and projects progress into the .NET world. Bil also has a special interest in coaching clients on Agile and General Software Development Best Practices.
Bil has been involved with Microsoft’s .NET platform since the early betas and has a deep passion for good Architecture and Software Design. He specializes in SharePoint, .NET, Agile, TDD, Windows Phone 7, and computer game programming. Bil also runs several successful open-source projects. He contributes to the software development community, taking the time to review and edit SharePoint and Agile publications, and speak at user groups, code camps, and conferences, including TechEd, DevConnections, PDC, and DevTeach.
Bil has been a Microsoft SharePoint MVP since 2004 and a member of the MSDN Canada Speakers Bureau. Bil currently lives and works in Alberta, Canada, with his wife, daughter, a Beowulf cluster of computers, every gaming console known to man, and a small menagerie of animals.


 

Caitie McCaffrey



According to Caitie’s website:

Caitie McCaffrey is a Backend Brat and Distributed Systems Diva. She currently is the Architect & Developer Manager of the Azure Sphere Security Services. She’s been with the Azure Sphere project since it’s early days in Microsoft Research, and has had the great privilege of building out the services and the team to help secure IoT. Caitie has spent her career building large scale services and systems at Twitter, 343 Industries, Microsoft Game Studios, and HBO. Caitie has credits on several video games including Gears of War 2, Gears of War 3, Halo 4, and Halo 5. She maintains a blog at CaitieM.com and frequently discusses technology on Twitter.


 

Chad Myers



Director of development at Dovetail Software. Speaker at the Austin .NET Users’ Group and the ADNUG Code Camp.



 

Corey Haines



Corey is the Co-Founder and CTO at Hearken. He is a Speaker, teacher, co-founder of Code Retreat, and developer on MercuryApp and Slottd.com. With a focus on agile principles, techniques, and object-oriented development practices.



 


 

Damian Edwards



According to Damian’s Blog:

I’m a Program Manager at Microsoft on the ASP.NET team. I look after the core of ASP.NET (the bits that ship in .NET), and the Web Forms framework built on top of it. I’m also the creator of the Web Forms MVP (http://webformsmvp.com) and SignalR (http://signalr.net) open source projects.


 

Damien Guard



According to Damien’s Blog:

My name is Damien Guard and I grew up on the small picturesque island of Guernsey located off the coast of northern France. (Yes, it’s where the cows come from)
I have been developing software since 1983 when I would learn on the school Acorn BBC Micros by day and my own Sinclair ZX Spectrum by night. I moved on to developing commercial & internet banking, e-commerce, device drivers, databases, intranets, extranets, Windows apps, content management and many other cool things.
I am currently working on next generation developer tooling.
Some previous career highlights include:
GitHub working on the Atom editor.
Centurylink Cloud — Principal engineer working on cloud product as well as a stint on the analytics team
Attack Pattern — Chief Technical Officer for a Silicon Valley start-up creating apps for Western Digital, Microsoft, Xbox, Pinger and the Bluetooth SIG
Netflix — Senior Engineer on the .NET based platforms. That includes web video player, Windows Phone 7x and Windows 8 apps
Xbox — Senior Engineer on Xbox web marketplace and broader services across xbox.com including security and JSON APIs for Windows 8
Microsoft — Working on LINQ to SQL and Entity Framework object-relational mappers, one of the original guys behind Code First
Ricoh — Development of the international distributor extranet ordering system (1998) and subsequent expansion
Before moving to the USA I was actively involved in the Guernsey Software Developer Forum where I gave a number of talks on subjects such as Subversion, Web Application Security and Microsoft’s Language Integrated Query (LINQ). I returned to Guernsey in 2020.


 

David Ebbo



David Ebbo was Microsoft developer lead working on Windows Azure Web Sites, with a focus on Project Kudu (the OSS git engine). He specialized in Azure Websites, ASP.NET, C#, Software Design, and Engineering.


David now works at Google.



 

David Fowler



David ASP.NET software developer at Microsoft. He is the creator and lead developer on SignalR. He is experienced in C#, JavaScript. Experienced in web development with ASP.NET and SQL Server. Also an active OSS developer and contributor.



 

Derek Comartin


According to Derek:

Derek Comartin is a software developer and Microsoft MVP with two decades of professional experience that spans enterprise, professional services, and product development.
He’s written software for a variety of business domains such as consumer goods, distribution, transportation, manufacturing, and accounting.
Derek runs a very active blog @ codeopinion.com and YouTube channel that focuses on Software Architecture and Design


 

Dmitry Pavlov


According to Dmitry’s Website:

I am a top-notch .NET developer freelancing worldwide. I have been coding for more than 20 years. I mostly deal with ASP.NET Core and Blazor (C#, .NET Core) software development stack these days. I would consider only 100% remote opportunities. I apply SDLC, -ilities, OOAD, SOLID and other engineering kung fu… But always try to use KISS principle. Top 1% on Stack Overflow. Top 3% of Freelance Developers. Active Microsoft MVP (8 awards). Master Degree in Computer Science. Open source author and 35K+ members community coordinator. Sense of humor adept.


 


 

Drew Marsh



Drew is a Chief software architect at Mimeo.com. Enthusiastic about .NET with a strong liking for distributed systems architecture.



 

Eric Lawrence



Eric is now a Program Manager on Edge at Microsoft. He is certainly known as the creator of the Fiddler Web Debugger, which he built with C# and was the sole maintainer for it from 2003 to 2016. Telerik acquired Fiddler at the end of 2012 and he worked on it for them until 2016.



 

Eric Lippert



According to Eric’s Blog:

I design and implement developer tools at Facebook.
Before starting at Facebook in February of 2016, I worked on C# static analyzers at Coverity; before that I was a Principal Developer at Microsoft on the C# compiler team and a member of the C# language design team. In my sixteen years at Microsoft I also worked on the design and implementation of VBScript, JScript, Windows Script Host and Visual Studio Tools for Office. I was also once on the ECMA committee which standardizes the JavaScript language.
I’m the author of several books on programming, and I edit programming books as a hobby.


 

Iris Classon


According to Microsoft:

Iris Classon is an appreciated speaker, writer, blogger, Microsoft C# MVP and member of MEET (Microsoft Extended Experts Team) with a tremendously passion for programming. She has had a remarkable career path that proves that nothing is impossible- switching from being a licensed and registered clinical dietician to a software developer with a dozen certifications and a full time developer job with renowned companies.
She has been featured in several newspaper articles, online articles and podcasts such as Hanselminutes, Computer Sweden and Developer Magazine. As a sought-after and frequent speaker at conferences such as TechDays, Scandinavian Developer Conference and various user groups she is known for her unique, creative and uplifting presentation style. Iris is hostess on the Get Up and Code! podcast, and on her spare time she does pro-bono work as a dietitian and is very engaged in the developer community. She also enjoys extreme sports such as barefoot running, mountain biking, weightlifting and scuba diving- and of course traveling.


 

Joe Mayo



According to Joe’s LinkedIn:

Joe Mayo is an author, instructor, and independent consultant who has been working with C# and .NET since its announcement in the summer of the year 2000. As an independent consultant, he’s worked with a variety of organizations from startup to fortune 500 enterprise. His experience in this journey includes desktop, web, mobile, cloud, and AI technologies. In addition to practical hands-on application, he’s also taught C# and .NET for many years via in-person, live video, and recorded video courses. His top open-source project is LINQ to Twitter (on GitHub), with over 1,000,000 NuGet downloads. When Joe isn’t serving valued customers, he contributes to the community through Q&A forums, presenting, and (one of his favorite pastimes) writing.


 

Joe Stagner



Joe has 30 years of experience in Software Technology. He specializes in C++, Delphi, Java, JavaScript, Visual Basic, C#, PHP, Python, Ruby, Smalltalk, and a few languages you wouldn’t have heard of.



 


 

John Papa



According to John’s Blog:

I’m a dedicated father and husband, a professional Web and Mobile Developer, and avid OSS and community advocate. I’m currently a Developer Advocate for Microsoft and have formerly worked for Disney on several web and mobile applications that you may have used.
I’m the author of various OSS such as Peacock, the Angular Style Guide, and many popular Pluralsight courses.
You can often find me speaking and training at various events around the world in keynotes, workshops, and sessions for events such as ngConf, AngleBrackets, and TechEd/Ignite.
You can listen to me on the popular weekly podcast Real Talk JavaScript.


 

Jon Galloway



According to Jon’s Blog:

Jon works at Microsoft as a .NET Program Manager, focusing on Mac. He’s co-author of Wrox Professional ASP.NET MVC, writes samples and tutorials like the MVC Music Store and is a frequent speaker at conferences and international Web Camps events. Jon’s been doing professional web development since the late 1990’s, including high scale applications in financial, entertainment and healthcare analytics. He’s part of the Herding Code podcast, Twitters as @jongalloway and blogs at http://weblogs.asp.net/jongalloway. He likes to travel, but spends most of his time in San Diego with his amazingly patient wife Rachel, three wonderful daughters, a dozen avocado trees and the occasional rattlesnake.


 

Jon Skeet


Currently a software engineer at Google, London. Usually a Microsoft MVP. Author of C# in Depth.



 

Julie Lerman



According to Julie’s Blog:

Julie Lerman is the leading independent authority on Microsoft’s Data Access Technology: Entity Framework. She has been programming for nearly 30 years and has been an independent consultant since 1989. Julie is one of 150 Microsoft Regional Directors worldwide — trusted partners & advisors to Microsoft’s most senior level staff. She has also been awarded Microsoft MVP annually since 2003.


 

Kathleen Dollard



Program Manager at Microsoft working on .NET Core CLI and Languages, including F#, C# and Visual Basic. Microsoft MVP and author of Code Generation in Microsoft .NET.


 

Kaycee Anderson



Program manager for the Visual Studio Debugger at Microsoft, frequent presenter at tech conferences nationwide.



 

Kevin Dockx



According to Kevin:

I’m a freelance solution architect, Pluralsight author & consultant, living in Antwerp (Belgium), working in this sector since 2003.
These days I’m mainly focused on RESTful architectures & security for web applications and mobile applications. That said, I still keep an eye out for new developments concerning other products from the Microsoft .NET stack.
I’m a Microsoft MVP (categories: Visual Studio and Development Technologies, which includes ASP.NET, and Windows Development, which is aimed at client-side Windows applications) and a board member of the RD MS Community. I regularly author courses for Pluralsight, and I’m a regular speaker at various national and international conferences & user group events.
Next to that, I’m a keen proponent of open-source software. The projects I work on, including Marvin.JsonPatch.Dynamic and Microsoft.AspNet.JsonPatch (support for the JsonPatch standard, part of ASP.NET Core) can be found at my GitHub page.
Feel free to contact me on Twitter, or through the contact form.


 


 

Kristian Hellang


According to Krisitan:

Kristian is an experienced full-stack developer who enjoys working with all kinds of technologies — from back-end databases to front-end user interface design. He has a deep understanding of object-oriented programming and is always concerned with best practices and principles.
Kristian cares deeply about his craft and never misses an opportunity to learn something new or enhance his existing skills — whether it is by reading blog posts, watching online courses, attending conferences and local user groups, or by working on one of his many spare-time projects. When he is not busy learning something new, he enjoys teaching and mentoring others. You can frequently find him answering questions on StackOverflow, writing blog posts, speaking at the local .NET user group, NNUG, or at the Norwegian Developers Conference.
He is a strong believer in Open Source Software and has contributed to over 100 open source projects in various languages and communities. Among these projects are some of the most popular .NET open source projects, like scriptcs, Nancy and Serilog, which he maintains on a daily basis.


 

Maarten Balliauw


According to Maarten:

Maarten Balliauw loves building web and cloud apps. His main interests are in ASP.NET MVC, C#, Microsoft Azure and application performance. He is Developer Advocate at JetBrains. He’s an ASP Insider and former Microsoft MVP. Maarten is a frequent speaker at various national and international events and organizes www.azug.be events. In his free time, he likes brewing his own beer.


 

Marc Gravell



Code geek working at Microsoft; Stack Overflow alumnus; C# fan; ex-MVP; author of protobuf-net; dapper, SE.Redis, and a few other things.



 

Maria Naggaga


Maria is a Principal Product Manager at Microsoft .NET Interactive and Minimal APIs.



 

Michele Leroux



Microservices / Security Architect & Co-founder, Solliance; Co-founder, PolicyServer; Microsoft RD & MVP.



 

Mike Stall



Power Fx Architect at Microsoft.



 

Mosh Hamedani



According to Mosh:

I am Mosh Hamedani! I am a passionate and pragmatic software engineer with 20 years of professional experience and I’ve taught over 10 million people how to code or how to become professional software engineers through my YouTube channel and online courses. I have a Bachelor of Science in Software Engineering and a Master of Science in Networks Systems.
My mission is to make coding and software engineering accessible to everyone through courses that are simple to digest, and practical to implement.


 


 

Paige Bailey


According to Paige:

Passionate about using machine learning to deliver business value; drive the creation and development of products; and empower end users. 12+ years of experience in applied ML, predictive modeling, data science and visualization, public speaking, and programming outreach.
• Python, R, SQL, MATLAB, C#, C++• AWS Certified Developer — Associate certificate• TensorFlow, scikit-learn, PyTorch, JAX


 

Phil Haack



According to Phil:

I build software at A Serious Business, Inc., a company I co-founded with a friend. We are the creators of Abbot. A hosted chat bot that helps teams make ChatOps a reality. You can learn more in my blog post introducing Abbot.
Before I started A Serious Business, Inc., I worked at GitHub doing whatever I could to make it even more awesome. Prior to that I worked at Microsoft on NuGet and ASP.NET MVC and helped to usher in Microsoft’s Open Source era.
I’m also a published author of several technical books and a regular international speaker.


 

Rick Strahl


President of West Wind Technologies. Writer, speaker, co-publisher of CODE Magazine, C# MVP.



 

Scott Allen

According to Scott:

I’ve been developing software for more than 25 years. I also consult and provide training through my company OdeToCode LLC. I’m a Pluralsight author, the CTO of Medisolv Inc., co-host of the podcast Herding Code, and a Microsoft Regional Director and MVP.

Sadly Scott Allen passed away. His unique style of teaching as well as his clear distinctive voice, made for a great instructor. His contributions to the community are his legacy. He will definitely be missed.



 

Scott Guthrie



According to Scott:

As executive vice president of the Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise group, Scott Guthrie is responsible for the company’s cloud infrastructure, server, database, management and development tools businesses. His engineering team builds Microsoft Azure, Windows Server, SQL Server, Active Directory, System Center, Visual Studio and .NET.
Prior to leading the Cloud and Enterprise group, Guthrie helped lead Microsoft Azure, Microsoft’s public cloud platform. Since joining the company in 1997, he has made critical contributions to many of Microsoft’s key cloud, server and development technologies and was one of the original founders of the .NET project. Guthrie graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Duke University. He lives in Seattle with his wife and two children.


 


 

Scott Hanselman



According to Scott:

I’m a programmer, teacher, and speaker. I work out of my home office in Portland, Oregon for the Web Platform Team at Microsoft, but this blog, its content and opinions are my own. I blog about technology, culture, gadgets, diversity, code, the web, where we’re going and where we’ve been. I’m excited about community, social equity, media, entrepreneurship and above all, the open web.


 

Sergey Migalnikov



Senior Consultant at Novanet. Fullstack Backend developer with special interests for DevOps. Proud owner of the rare Content Hero badger for being a true contributor to the community.



 

Simone Chiaretta


Simone is a software developer/architect. He codes on the .NET platform since 2001 when .NET was still in the Beta version. He also wrote a book about ASP.NET MVC.



 

Stephen Walther


Stephen specializes in ASP.NET, Meteor, and JavaScript. He is the author of the best-selling book on ASP.NET and a founding member of several successful startups.



 

Steve Sanderson


According to Steve:

I’ve worked on web technologies at Microsoft since 2010. I first joined the ASP.NET team in the MVC 3 era, then spent a few years moving through a range of projects including JavaScript libraries and the new Azure management portal. Most recently I rejoined the ASP.NET team with a goal to make the platform a sheer joy and delight for JavaScript developers.
Beside this I have strong interests in other aspects of software technology. I started the Knockout.js project way back in 2010 (before client-side MV* was cool) and am one of the same boring faces that keep showing up as a speaker at the tech conferences.
Previously I developed .NET software as a contractor/consultant for clients in Bristol and beyond, plus wrote some books for Apress, such as Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework and its various sequels.


 


 

Steve “ardalis” Smith



According to Steve:

Steve Smith has been recognized by Microsoft as a Most Valuable Professional (MVP) since 2002, and was a member of Microsoft’s Regional Director program for 10 years. He is also a founding member of the ASPInsiders, an external advisory group for the ASP.NET product team. As Microsoft launches their new version of ASP.NET, he has been contributing to the product and authoring many sections of the official documentation on GitHub.
Steve provides private group coaching to help accelerate developers’ careers at devBetter.com”.


 

Timothy (Tim) Corey



According to Microsoft:

I started programming professionally before I graduated high school. I immediately loved it. The only problem was that no one really taught me how to grow my skills. I spent years going down blind alleys and taking the wrong fork in the road in my quest to become a better software developer. Over time I finally figured it out, but even then I had gaps in my knowledge. When I finally started to get a good grasp on what software development was all about, I began to help others avoid my mistakes. From that came my YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/IAmTimCorey) and my training site (https://IAmTimCorey.com). I primarily teach C# but I also cover SQL and the web technologies (HTML/CSS/JavaScript).


 

Yina Arenas



Partner Group Program Manager at Microsoft, frequent presenter at conferences and hackathons.



 

List of top DotNet (.NET) developers and contributors to connect with and follow to learn and gain new skills. Code Coding Programming Development Software Engineering Architecture Best Practice Design
Photo by Hybrid on Unsplash

Final Thoughts


It was not easy to compile the list as I had to scan through different social media platforms, apply some filtering criteria, and collect information about everyone on the list. However, I still enjoyed the trip as it allowed me to connect with great people.


If you think there is someone missing from the list, you can contact me and I will check.


Finally, I hope you found this article useful and enjoyed reading it as I enjoyed writing it.



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