.Net Coding Specialist Certification

Candidates are expected to demonstrate a strong foundation in developing and debugging applications using modern .NET technologies.

Prior to taking the exam, candidates are recommended to have approximately 150–300 hours of hands-on experience or equivalent training in developing applications using .NET.

This certification reflects a candidate’s readiness to enter the professional job market and may be used by employers as a job-readiness and placement indicator.

Knowledge Pillars DNCS uses a task-based examination format delivered in a real .NET environment to ensure validity and accurate measurement of real-world development skills.

The exam is available in testing centers or via secure remote proctoring.

Skills Measured:

1. Design the application architectureCandidates are expected to demonstrate the ability to plan and design modern .NET application architectures aligned with enterprise development practices. This includes planning data access strategies, enforcing separation of concerns, and ensuring appropriate use of architectural patterns and frameworks within modern .NET environments.

• Plan the application layers

Plan data access; plan for separation of concerns; apply appropriate use of models, views, controllers, view components, and service dependency injection; choose between client-side and server-side processing; design for scalability; choose appropriate frameworks including ASP.NET Core and modern .NET libraries; determine when to use shared or standard .NET libraries.

• Design a distributed application

Design hybrid and distributed applications; plan for session management in distributed environments; plan web farms and multi-instance deployments; design deferred processing using Azure services including queues, scheduled jobs, background services, Azure Functions, and WebJobs; design API-driven and service-oriented architectures; design for scalability and high availability.

• Design and implement the Azure Web Apps life cycle

Identify and implement Start, Run, and Stop events; code against application lifecycle events; configure startup tasks; configure hosting and runtime behavior in Azure App Service; configure application settings, deployment slots, and environment configuration; manage application lifecycle within Azure environments.

• Configure state management

Choose a state management mechanism including in-process and distributed state management (including Azure Cache for Redis); plan for scalability; use cookies or local storage to maintain state; implement session and sessionless state management; configure middleware to enable session and application state in ASP.NET Core.

• Design a caching strategy

Implement output caching and data caching; create cache profiles; implement HTTP caching; implement Azure Cache for Redis; plan a content delivery network (CDN) strategy including Azure CDN; design caching strategies for performance and scalability.

• Design and implement a WebSocket strategy

Read and write string and binary data asynchronously; choose connection resilience strategies; decide when to use WebSockets; implement SignalR; enable WebSocket features within Azure App Service environments.

• Design a configuration management solution

Manage configuration sources including JSON and environment variables; implement Options pattern; implement multiple environment configurations; manage sensitive configuration; react to runtime configuration changes; implement secure configuration using Azure Key Vault; use development secret management tools to keep secrets out of source code.

• Interact with the host environment

Work with file systems using file providers; work with environment variables; determine hosting environment capabilities (Windows, Linux, Azure App Service, containers); implement native dependencies; understand hosting environments including Kestrel, IIS, and cloud-hosted environments.

• Compose an application by using the framework pipeline

Add custom request processing modules; add, remove, and configure services used in the application; design and implement middleware; design for Kestrel, HTTP.sys, IIS, and Azure hosting environments; design and implement startup filters.

2. Design the build and deployment architecture

• Design a browser artifact build strategy

Design front-end build strategies; implement bundling and minification strategies for JavaScript, CSS, and static assets; manage modern front-end tooling and optimization.

• Design a server build strategy

Manage NuGet dependencies; target modern .NET runtimes including .NET 6/8/10 LTS; manage debug and release configurations; manage build artifacts and shared resources; implement project metadata and versioning; configure build options and optimization settings; manage static files in ASP.NET Core.

• Design a publishing strategy

Implement application publishing using modern .NET CLI tools; manage publishing options; implement pre-publish and post-publish tasks; implement packaging strategies; publish container-ready deployments including Docker images.

• Implement an Azure deployment strategy

Deploy Azure Web Apps using supported deployment models; provision Azure resources during deployment; implement deployment environments including development, staging, and production; use deployment slots; deploy to Azure App Service, container services, or Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS); configure environment settings and resource access.

• Implement an on-premises deployment strategy

Deploy applications to IIS and Linux hosts; deploy to Windows and Linux environments; deploy to Kestrel behind reverse proxies such as IIS and Nginx; implement hybrid deployment scenarios across on-premises and cloud environments.

3. Design the User Experience

• Create elements of the user interface for a web application

Create and apply styles using CSS; structure UI using HTML; implement dynamic content.

• Design and implement UI behavior

Implement client-side validation; use JavaScript to manipulate the DOM; implement asynchronous updates (AJAX/fetch); implement dynamic UI behavior.

• Design the UI layout

Implement partial views and reusable components; design pages using Razor Pages or MVC; implement layouts and shared UI structures; use tag helpers and HTML helpers.

• Plan responsive UI layout

Design for multiple devices and resolutions; implement responsive layouts; ensure cross-browser compatibility.

• Plan mobile UI strategy

Implement mobile-friendly UI; design for device capabilities and bandwidth variations.

4. Develop the User Experience

• Plan for search engine optimization and accessibility

Use analytical tools to validate HTML structure and performance; provide an XML sitemap and robots.txt where applicable; write semantic markup for accessibility (e.g., screen readers); implement accessibility best practices (e.g., ARIA where appropriate); use rich snippets/structured data to increase content visibility.

• Plan and implement globalization and localization

Plan a localization strategy; create and apply resources to UI (including JavaScript resources where applicable); set cultures and UI cultures; implement server-side localization and globalization; format dates, numbers, and currencies correctly; support multilingual content and resource fallback strategies.

• Design and implement MVC controllers and actions

Apply authorization attributes and filters (global, authentication, and overridable filters); choose and implement appropriate HTTP status codes and responses; implement action results; implement MVC areas; implement dependency injection for services in controllers; implement validation and error-handling patterns for actions.

• Design and implement routes

Define routes to handle URL patterns; apply route constraints; ignore URL patterns where appropriate; add custom route parameters; define areas; implement attribute routing; define routes that interoperate with SPA frameworks such as Angular/React where applicable.

• Control application behavior by using MVC extensibility points

Create custom middleware and inject it into the pipeline; implement MVC filters and controller factories where applicable; control application behavior using action results, model binders, and route handlers; inject services into views; implement policies and cross-cutting concerns (logging, authorization, validation) using extensibility points.

• Design and implement serialization and model binding

Serialize models and data using supported formats including JSON and XML (and protobuf where applicable); implement model and property binding, including custom binding and model validation; implement file uploading and multipart handling; implement web socket communication where appropriate; build or consume API clients using modern tooling (e.g., OpenAPI/Swagger tooling).

5. Troubleshoot and Debug Web Applications

• Prevent and troubleshoot runtime issues

Troubleshoot performance, security, and runtime errors; implement tracing, structured logging, and debugging strategies; enable and configure health monitoring; configure and use Azure Application Insights and Azure Monitor for runtime telemetry; analyze logs and diagnostic data to identify root causes; monitor application performance and reliability in production environments.

• Design an exception handling strategy

Handle exceptions across multiple application layers; configure centralized error handling using middleware; implement environment-specific error handling strategies; create and display custom error pages; configure a custom pipeline for exception handling; log application exceptions using structured logging; configure and use Azure Application Insights for exception tracking and monitoring.

• Test a web application

Create and run unit tests using modern testing frameworks; create mocks and stubs; implement integration and functional testing; debug applications across multiple browsers and environments; automate test execution using CI/CD pipelines; use modern DevOps tooling such as Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions for build and test workflows.

• Debug an Azure application

Collect diagnostic information using Azure Application Insights and Azure Monitor; analyze logs, performance metrics, and crash dumps; stream logs from deployed Azure applications; perform remote debugging of Azure-hosted applications; interact with deployed Azure resources using modern Azure management tools; monitor and troubleshoot distributed cloud applications.

6. Design and Implement Security

• Configure authentication

Authenticate users; enforce authentication settings; implement ASP.NET Core Identity; enable external identity providers (such as Google, Facebook, and enterprise identity providers); implement account confirmation, password recovery, and multi-factor authentication; perform authentication using Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory), Entra ID B2C and enterprise identity services; manage user sessions using cookies and token-based authentication; acquire and manage access tokens using Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL) or equivalent modern libraries.

• Configure and apply authorization

Create roles; authorize roles programmatically; configure and work with custom user stores and identity providers; configure controllers, services, and endpoints to participate in authorization; implement policy-based authorization and role-based access control; manage authorization across application layers.

• Design and implement claims-based authentication

Perform authentication and authorization using claims and tokens including OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0, JWT, SAML, and bearer tokens; implement secure token validation and handling; manage identity claims and roles across services and APIs; implement secure identity federation where applicable.

• Manage data integrity

Apply encryption to application data; protect configuration sections and sensitive settings; sign application data to prevent tampering; secure secrets and configuration using Azure Key Vault; implement encryption and data protection APIs for securing data in transit and at rest; manage secure storage of credentials and sensitive application data.

• Implement a secure site

Secure communication using HTTPS and SSL/TLS certificates; require secure connections for application endpoints; implement secure hosting configurations in cloud and on-premises environments; implement SSL termination and certificate management including Azure Load Balancer and application gateway scenarios; salt and hash passwords securely; implement input validation and output encoding to prevent cross-site scripting (XSS); prevent SQL injection by parameterizing queries; prevent cross-site request forgery (CSRF/XSRF); implement Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) policies; implement protection against open redirect and common web attacks; monitor and protect cloud resources using Microsoft Defender for Cloud (formerly Azure Security Center) and related security tools.

Get your certification in just three steps: 

1. Sign up on Knowledge Pillars and create your exam account.
2. Purchase your exam voucher from the Knowledge Pillars Store or reach out to one of our TTPs
3. If you are a student, reach out to your scholastic institution.
4. Check your email for exam instructions. Be sure to check your spam folder and add Knowledge Pillars to your safe sender list.

Exam Confirmation and Certification Details 

After passing your  exam, you’ll receive an email with details on accessing your digital transcript and official certification. 

Remote Proctoring and Exam Policies 

IMPORTANT: KP Certifications offer remote proctoring, allowing candidates to take exams safely and conveniently from anywhere. If you need assistance, contact our support team at [email protected]. 

The minimum system requirements are:

• Operating System: Windows 7/8/10/11, MacOS X 10.0 or newer, or Linux OS. 

• RAM Requirement: Minimum 1GB (higher may be required depending on OS). 

• Processor Requirement: At least 1.0 GHz (higher may be required based on OS and architecture). 

• Display Requirement: Minimum resolution of 1366×768 pixels. 

• Browser Requirement: Latest version of Google Chrome. 

• Internet Access: Stable internet connection required. 

• System Settings: Disable automatic updates, notifications, and popups to prevent disruptions during the exam.