Principal .NET Consultant (Dallas)

Role Overview

We're seeking a highly experienced, hands-on Principal .NET Consultant who combines deep technical mastery of the .NET ecosystem with exceptional client-facing, leadership, and communication skills. You will lead complex delivery engagements, architect robust solutions, mentor teams, and serve as a trusted advisor to clients-translating business needs into secure, scalable, and maintainable .NET solutions.

Key Responsibilities

Client & Leadership

• Lead end-to-end client engagements: discovery, solution design, delivery, and post-go-live support.
• Build and maintain strong executive-level relationships; act as a trusted technical advisor.
• Facilitate requirements workshops, steer scope and expectations, and negotiate trade-offs.
• Mentor senior and mid-level engineers; foster a culture of quality, ownership, and continuous improvement.
• Contribute to pre-sales: estimates, proposals, solution narratives, and technical win strategies.

Architecture & Hands-On Delivery

• Design and implement enterprise-grade solutions using modern .NET (e.g., .NET 8/9, ASP.NET Core, C#).
• Own critical components: domain modeling, API design, performance tuning, security, and observability.
• Define architecture patterns (clean architecture, DDD, microservices, event-driven) and enforce coding standards.
• Drive DevOps practices: CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure automation, and cloud-native deployments (Azure/AWS).
• Perform code reviews, troubleshoot complex issues, and occasionally write production code to unblock teams.

Quality, Risk, and Governance

• Establish quality gates, testing strategies (unit/integration/load), and reliability practices.
• Identify technical risks early and lead mitigation plans; ensure compliance and security best practices.
• Measure outcomes and iterate: track KPIs, gather feedback, and refine solutions over time.

Required Qualifications

Technical Depth (.NET Stack)

• 10+ years of professional software development, with 6+ years focused on .NET.
• Expert-level C# and deep knowledge of .NET frameworks: ASP.NET Core, EF Core, Web APIs, background services, gRPC as needed.
• Strong experience with:
  • Cloud platforms (Azure and/or AWS), containers (Docker/Kubernetes), and serverless patterns.
  • Data access and performance (SQL Server, PostgreSQL, caching, message brokers like Azure Service Bus/Kafka/RabbitMQ).
  • Security (OAuth2/OIDC, JWT, secrets management), observability (OpenTelemetry, structured logging, metrics).
• Demonstrated ability to make sound technology choices and justify them to both engineers and business stakeholders.

Client-Facing & Leadership

• Proven track record leading client engagements and delivering complex projects on time and within scope.
• Excellent communication: able to explain complex technical concepts clearly to non-technical audiences.
• Strong facilitation, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills; comfortable in executive conversations.
• Experience mentoring engineers, leading design reviews, and elevating team capability.
• Comfortable in a consulting environment: travel as needed, multi-client context, and shifting priorities.