Senior WinForms developer with no ASP experience - legitimate chance at a Senior ASP.NET position?

Question

I would like to know from those in hiring roles and in senior ASP.NET roles, would you seriously consider a person like myself for a senior ASP.NET role?

A bit about myself: I am seriously considering a switch from WinForms to ASP.NET. There just do not seem to be many positions for desktop application developers anymore. It's becoming a niche field. In the pursuit of greater opportunities, I am trying to repackage myself as an ASP.NET developer. Unfortunately, there is the obvious lack of professional experience that is a gap on the resume. Seriously, the only real issue with losing my senior status is the paycut involved. I couldn't care less about the title, but sadly, we all have bills.

I could argue that there is a lot more to software development that knowing the intricacies of web development vs desktop-- there are issues of designing reusable code, design patterns, C# language features, database experience (another place where my experience is light), class design, professional maturity, and so on.. But I fear that these arguments will fall on deaf ears, especially in these times, when there are already so many experienced ASP.NET developers already out of work. I can sling together a few simple web pages that hit a database and show the data, but this is far from a professional web site, I'm afraid.

Answer 1

Well, I think it depends on a number of factors. Firstly, do you actually know ASP.NET? I mean more than "I can do the samples" -- I mean what's your actual level of proficiency? I would expect someone with your story who may not have had job responsibility in that area to have (extensive) personal experience (e.g., "I didn't do that at work, but for my personal web site bla bla bla"). Are you conversant with the frameworks, 3rd party addons, etc? If so, and you had deep experience elsewhere, I think you have a great shot at landing that type of job.

If you're coming in completely cold, honestly I don't think your chances are good...especially in this market.

The final thing I'd add is that it depends on the type and size of company. A small company hiring a single senior engineer for that slot may have more heartburn about your lack of commercial experience (I know I would), whereas a larger organization looking to build out a team would likely be less concerned.

Answer 2

You are a senior developer, who is unfamiliar with ASP.net. So, you don't currently qualify as a senior ASP.net developer, as Senior implies familiar with the intricacies and peculiarities of the platform in which you work. Companies pay senior developers more because they do not have to spend cycles learning the basics of their development platform.

Fortunately the solution isn't too difficult. Just start writing code at home in asp.net. As a Senior .net developer you should be able to catch on very quickly. Put out a product or site to use as a portfolio and to show that you have gained experience in the ASP.net platform. And when you get to your spiffy new Senior ASP.net position, your company won't put undo pressure on you because you don't have the knowledge coming in that they expected from a senior developer.

Answer 3

Well I hire ASP.NET and WinForms coders and I wouldn't rule you out. Interestingly, in the UK, Web coders tend to earn a lot more than WinForms coders so a strange reversal of your situation.
ASP.NET/Web coding has it's own challenges, especially the stateless design which is fairly alien to most Desktop coders so I'd spend some time getting to understand what you're letting yourself into, maybe knock up a couple of side project which you can put as links in your CV and give you something to discuss in the interview.
I'm interested to know why you are so keen to get into ASP.NET coding though - WinForms is still very popular, especially in Game Tools coding. You can make a decent living and work on a lot of interesting stuff.

Note - controversial but after interviewing a LOT of ASP.NET coders, I found the standard to be very hit and miss, whereas WinForms coders tend to be good solid coders so I suspect you're a decent coder which is ALWAYS a bonus on any team :)

Answer 4

This is an interesting question ...

Being a senior Winforms developer, shows you know a large part of .Net, and if you also know how the web works (HTML, JS, GET, POST, Headers, Cookies, etc) and also know ASP.Net fundamentals (page lifecycle, controls, authentication, sessions, etc ...) then you would get a fair change for a senior ASP.Net developer position.

Answer 5

I think the odds are stacked against you but that doesn't mean you can't make the transition with a little effort.

The first thing you must do is find ways to convey to the potential employers that you can handle ASP.NET development. Have you ever worked with HTML, CSS, or JavaScript? Have you at least consumed Web services? Maybe you could buy one of those ASP.NET beginner books and work through the examples at home.

Next, elaborate on the similarities between your current job and that of an ASP.NET developer. You have likely used similar controls. You have likely followed similar high level design/development concepts. You have likely used the same tools. You have likely worked with complex SQL queries.

Take these things and target your resume / cover letter towards the posted job. Don't exaggerate or lie, just word it such that it is clear that while you haven't worked as a Web developer, you have certainly had enough exposure to handle the transition.

The only other thing I can suggest is patience. Other candidates will have more Web experience and you can't overcome that. You might even need to take a pay cut to make the transition.

Best of luck to you.

Answer 6

I would say this transition is a manouver for many. Web programming is very different where you need to love style sheets, HTML and JavaScript preferably since your school time, let alone JS is enough to annoy an orthodox OOprogrammer. Someone wrote above, finding a good web developer can be hit and miss and he's absolutely right!! Web developers groom skills with a different mindset starting from HTML and styles and at some point in their career they realize the need to know C#, JAVA or SQL, the opposite direction you want to travel:)

In my opinion, you as a classic programmer may want to dig deep into SOA, Systems programming, multithreading stuff or even a OLAP or Reports developer. However, if these are not an option then you might bridge Web Developmet gap with some new stuff like jQuery instead of plain JS and ASP.Net MVC framework in lieu of tradition ASP.Net Web Forms programming and try to use some vendor controls like Telerik or Infragistics to get started, hopefully you will find transition lot smoother but still I have doubts if Web programming can keep you involved in long term given your background. All the best!!