IICTI Certified .NET Software Developer

Holders demonstrate that they can apply and evaluate cLR internals, GC tuning and allocation-free C#, async, concurrency and high-throughput I/O pipelines, native AOT, trimming and startup performance engineering and aSP.NET Core high-performance API and middleware architecture, plus 7 further areas, in realistic professional scenarios, as defined in the AQSCERT scheme for .NET Software Developer.

Who it is for: Professionals working, or preparing to work, in software development roles.

1. 01CLR internals, GC tuning and allocation-free C#15% of the exam

   • Diagnose and eliminate allocation, GC pause and memory-pressure problems in latency-critical .NET services.
   • Scope: CLR type system and JIT, generational and region-based GC, Server/Workstation and DATAS modes, LOH/POH, Span<T>, Memory<T>, ref structs, ArrayPool, stackalloc and allocation profiling with dotnet-counters, dotnet-trace and PerfView.
2. 02Async, concurrency and high-throughput I/O pipelines10% of the exam

   • Design concurrent .NET components that scale under load without deadlocks, starvation or data races.
   • Scope: TAP and async state machine internals, SynchronizationContext, ValueTask, IAsyncEnumerable, System.Threading.Channels, System.IO.Pipelines, TPL Dataflow, cancellation, thread-pool starvation and lock-free primitives.
3. 03Native AOT, trimming and startup performance engineering4% of the exam

   • Evaluate and apply compilation and code-generation strategies to meet startup, footprint and throughput targets.
   • Scope: Native AOT and ILLink trimming constraints, source generators (System.Text.Json, Regex, logging), ReadyToRun, tiered compilation and Dynamic PGO, BenchmarkDotNet methodology and statistical interpretation.
4. 04ASP.NET Core high-performance API and middleware architecture14% of the exam

   • Architect ASP.NET Core APIs that meet demanding performance, scalability and contract-stability requirements.
   • Scope: Kestrel tuning, middleware pipeline design, minimal APIs vs controllers, output and hybrid caching, rate limiting, gRPC, SignalR, HTTP/3, ProblemDetails, API versioning and OpenAPI contract governance.
5. 05Distributed .NET systems with .NET Aspire and resilience patterns5% of the exam

   • Design resilient, observable distributed .NET systems with correct failure handling and message delivery semantics.
   • Scope: .NET Aspire orchestration and service defaults, service discovery, Microsoft.Extensions.Http.Resilience and Polly v8, messaging with MassTransit, Azure Service Bus and Kafka, transactional outbox, sagas, idempotency, Dapr and Kubernetes deployment.
6. 06EF Core performance, data access and consistency strategies14% of the exam

   • Diagnose and optimise data access layers for correctness, consistency and performance at production scale.
   • Scope: EF Core query translation and compiled queries/models, split queries, change tracking costs, ExecuteUpdate/ExecuteDelete, optimistic concurrency tokens, transaction isolation, migrations in CI/CD and Dapper hybrid access.
7. 07Domain-driven design and modular monolith architecture in .NET8% of the exam

   • Architect maintainable .NET solutions whose module boundaries and dependencies are enforced and evolvable.
   • Scope: Bounded contexts, aggregates and domain events, CQRS and mediator trade-offs, vertical slice and clean architecture, architecture tests (NetArchTest, ArchUnitNET) and staged decomposition from modular monolith to services.
8. 08Application security, identity and supply chain for ASP.NET Core12% of the exam

   • Evaluate and harden .NET applications against identity, authorization and dependency supply-chain threats.
   • Scope: OAuth 2.1 and OpenID Connect, Microsoft Entra ID and Microsoft.Identity.Web, JWT validation pitfalls, policy-based authorization, Data Protection API, Key Vault secret handling, OWASP ASVS 5.0, OWASP API Security Top 10, NuGet package signing, source mapping and SBOM.
9. 09OpenTelemetry observability and production diagnostics5% of the exam

   • Diagnose production incidents in .NET services using telemetry, dumps and runtime event analysis.
   • Scope: OpenTelemetry traces, metrics and logs via ActivitySource and Meter, structured logging, EventPipe, dotnet-dump and dotnet-gcdump analysis of leaks, hangs and crashes, and exporters to Azure Monitor, Prometheus and Grafana.
10. 10Advanced test architecture and quality engineering for .NET8% of the exam

    • Design a test strategy that gives high-confidence, fast feedback across unit, integration and contract levels.
    • Scope: xUnit v3 and MSTest, WebApplicationFactory integration tests, Testcontainers, consumer-driven contract testing with Pact, mutation testing with Stryker.NET, Roslyn analyzers and quality gates in CI.
11. 11Leading .NET modernisation and engineering governance5% of the exam

    • Lead the modernisation roadmap and engineering standards of a .NET product portfolio.
    • Scope: .NET Framework to modern .NET migration with .NET Upgrade Assistant and YARP strangler-fig routing, LTS/STS support policy, Central Package Management, CI/CD with GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps, ADRs and code review standards.

Question types

Single choice 100%

Delivery

Online (remote proctored), Test centre, On-site (corporate)

Retakes

Up to three attempts within any 12-month period. A 14-day waiting period applies after a first unsuccessful attempt and 30 days after a second. Each retake requires a new booking and fee. Retakes draw a different randomised form from the question bank.

Provisional cut score — psychometric validation is required before live delivery. Blueprint v1.0.

1. 1

   Register

   Create a free account and start the programme.

2. 2

   Practice

   Online practice test (coming soon).

3. 3

   Training

   Optional

   Online course or classroom — or skip it.

4. 4

   Certification

   Independent exam and certification decision.

Training is optional and does not by itself confer certification. Find a training partner