.NET Team Lead

Role Description The .NET Team Lead is a full-time, on-site role based in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Area. This position oversees a development team responsible for designing, building, and maintaining .NET applications that support CFI’s loan, grant, scholarship, and savings programs. Day-to-day responsibilities include leading technical planning, assigning and reviewing work, mentoring developers, and ensuring adherence to best practices in software architecture, coding standards, and security. The .NET Team Lead collaborates with stakeholders to gather requirements, translates business needs into technical solutions, and coordinates with QA and operations to support releases and ongoing maintenance. The role also involves hands-on coding, troubleshooting complex issues, optimizing performance, and contributing to continuous improvement of development processes and tools.

Responsibilities:

Supervision and Leadership:

• Supervise a team of .NET developers, assigning, prioritizing, and tracking work to meet project commitments and support needs.
• Set clear expectations, goals, and priorities for the team, and hold team members accountable for quality and delivery.
• Participate in hiring, onboarding, and performance evaluations, providing input on promotions, recognition, and corrective action in partnership with the Manager and Human Resources.
• Represent the team in planning, prioritization, and status discussions with management, the PMO, and business stakeholders, and escalate risks and issues early.
• Foster a collaborative, inclusive, and accountable team culture that encourages innovation and continuous improvement.

Mentorship and Team Development:

• Mentor and coach developers through pairing, design and code reviews, and regular one-on-one meetings.
• Identify skill gaps and create individual development plans, recommending training and certification opportunities.
• Lead knowledge-sharing sessions on coding standards, secure coding, testing, and new technologies.
• Model and promote the responsible use of AI-assisted development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Claude) across the team, in line with CFI security, privacy, and code review standards.

Administrative Duties:

• Plan sprints and releases, estimate effort, and maintain the team’s backlog in partnership with product owners and the PMO.
• Approve and manage team time off, timesheets, and on-call or support coverage schedules.
• Track and report team metrics (e.g., velocity, defect rates, DORA metrics) and project status to management.
• Maintain team documentation, including technical designs, runbooks, and onboarding materials.
• Provide input on resource needs, tooling, licensing, and vendor or contractor engagements.

Technical Leadership and Delivery:

• Architect, design, and develop complex web applications, microservices, and APIs using ASP.NET Core, Entity Framework Core, and current .NET best practices, remaining hands-on in development.
• Architect and lead the deployment of .NET applications and services to Microsoft Azure, leveraging Azure App Service, Azure Functions, Azure SQL Database, and Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines.
• Establish and champion best practices for monitoring, securing, and optimizing cloud-hosted applications using Azure Monitor, Application Insights, and Azure Key Vault.
• Own the team’s automated testing and quality practices, including unit, integration, and regression testing (e.g., xUnit, NUnit), in partnership with the QA team.
• Troubleshoot complex technical issues and coordinate timely resolution of production incidents affecting the team’s applications.
• Define and enforce .NET coding standards, design patterns, and peer review practices in alignment with CFI’s architectural standards.
• Partner with Solutions Architects on solution designs, technology evaluations, and modernization initiatives.
• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent work experience and technical training.
• 8+ years of professional experience in .NET web development, including 2+ years in a technical lead, team lead, or supervisory role.
• Extensive expertise in C#, ASP.NET Core (MVC and Web API), Entity Framework Core, and related .NET technologies.
• Proficiency in front-end technologies such as HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, TypeScript, and modern frameworks/libraries.
• Strong background in web services, RESTful APIs, and database systems (e.g., SQL Server, Azure SQL Database).
• Proven experience architecting, deploying, and supporting .NET applications on Microsoft Azure, including Azure App Service, Azure Functions, Azure SQL Database, and Azure DevOps (Repos/Pipelines).
• Proficiency in web architecture and security (e.g., authentication and authorization, OWASP Top 10).
• Demonstrated ability to supervise, mentor, and develop technical staff.
• Experience planning and managing team workloads in an Agile/Scrum environment.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
• Outstanding communication skills, with the ability to lead a team and collaborate effectively with management, business stakeholders, and cross-functional teams.

Desired Skills:

• Experience with client-side frameworks like Angular, React, or Vue.js.
• Experience with Azure infrastructure-as-code (ARM templates or Bicep), Azure API Management, and containerized workloads on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
• Experience with RavenDB, RabbitMQ, and Umbraco a plus.
• Knowledge of Azure Boards or the Atlassian suite (Jira, Confluence) for work management.
• Microsoft Azure certification (e.g., AZ-204 Azure Developer Associate or AZ-305 Azure Solutions Architect Expert).
• Certified ScrumMaster or similar Agile certification.
• Ability to create and maintain development documentation, including database and application design.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, especially in technical specifications and status reporting.

Company Description College Foundation, Inc. (CFI) is a non-profit organization that has supported North Carolina students and families since 1955. CFI administers education loan programs, major state-funded grant and scholarship programs, and the tax-advantaged NC 529 college savings plan. The organization operates on behalf of the North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority (NCSEAA) to expand access to higher education. Team members contribute to programs that directly impact college affordability and educational opportunity across the state. CFI offers a mission-driven environment for professionals who want to make a meaningful difference in students’ lives.