Interview blueprint

Interview blueprint

The weighting below is a recommended structure for a 60-minute senior technical interview. It is a synthesis, not a Microsoft-prescribed rubric, but it is grounded in the current shape of the .NET ecosystem and the official guidance around APIs, diagnostics, resilience, data, testing, and cloud hosting.

Topic area	Priority	Suggested number of questions	Suggested time allocation	Why this matters most
Architecture and design patterns	High		8 min	Senior hires must understand boundaries, coupling, CQRS/DDD trade-offs, and pragmatic architecture
Advanced C# language features	High		10 min	Async, LINQ, generics, spans, and disposal patterns show whether the candidate really understands the platform
ASP.NET Core and Web APIs	High		9 min	Most senior backend .NET roles live here: middleware, DI, HTTP semantics, background work, outbound calls
EF Core and data access	High		7 min	Change tracking, query shape, concurrency, and transactions are common production failure points
Performance and concurrency	High		8 min	Senior candidates should know how to diagnose bottlenecks, not only write features
Distributed systems, microservices, security	Medium-high		8 min	Needed for modern service ecosystems and public APIs
Testing	Medium		4 min	Senior engineers should know how to keep systems changeable and verifiable
CI/CD, cloud, and DevOps	Medium		3 min	Modern delivery competence matters, but should be probed efficiently
Behavioral and leadership	High for senior roles	1–2	3 min	Ownership, communication, and incident handling separate senior from strong mid-level

A practical interviewing rule: use shorter questions only as entry points, then spend most of the time on “why,” “what would you change under higher scale,” and “what are the failure modes.” That is where seniority becomes visible.