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I am a .NET developer who builds web apps and I’m thinking of learning SharePoint 2010 and change my career to SharPOint development. Why? Because web development is widely focused and I never seem to be an expert in any one technology. There’s just too much to learn. At least with SharePoint I can use my existing C# and database skills in one platform.

My question is this: Is it a good career move to focus on one platform such as SharePoint? I sure hope you say yes.

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  • what course do i need to take to go in the feild of sharepoint developer, am web designer i know the basic of c#. i use to work with php/mysql. so what course do i need to take c# 2010 or visual basic 2010 i am torn a part can any one help please. by the way my name is abeer
    – user7426
    Mar 19, 2012 at 16:11
  • You make it sound like going to SharePoint would mean leaving behind .NET and .NET coding skills. It's quite the opposite, you will be required to gain skills
    – Louis
    Apr 19, 2012 at 1:01
  • Having done this move myself, I wrote a top 10 useful things to know, to help people do the same thing: blog.pentalogic.net/2012/05/…
    – Stu Pegg
    Jul 4, 2012 at 8:43

11 Answers 11

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"There’s just too much to learn."

If this is part of your criteria, do not go to SharePoint. SharePoint has a large learning curve and is a huge platform. I've been doing SharePoint development for five years and I am still investing lots of time to learn more.

The reason why the SharePoint developer market is so good is because a large percentage of the developer market won't invest the time to learn what they need to to become effective.

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    I feel this is the best advice in the lot. One should aim to excel in his/her field, and on that road there isn't anything "less" to learn in SharePoint development. If anything, OP will find he has more to learn and nothing that can be left behind. Anyways, there isn't really a dichotomy between .Net and SharePoint development. In our group people do both and switch as required.
    – Louis
    Apr 19, 2012 at 0:56
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Because web development is widely focused and I never seem to be an expert in any one technology. There’s just too much to learn.

On the surface, SharePoint might look like a single platform, but at the heart of it you will need to know a lot more than what SharePoint is. Besides learning SharePoint, you will need to learn Business Intelligence, Active Directory, Exchange, WCF, WWF, Windows Identity, and list goes on. My point is that it is just not enough to learn SharePoint, you will need to learn many other technologies that SP interacts with.

A lot of people give up on SharePoint not because there is big learning curve, but simply because the development process is much more involved than ASP.NET (ex: deploying your solution). SharePoint is ASP.NET plus everything else out there (JQuery, SilverLight, Mobile, etc.). Almost anything you can imagine, there is a way to integrate with SharePoint.

My recommendation is to learn the basics of SharePoint, then specialize in one or two areas. For example, specialize in Enterprise Content Management and Business Intelligence. Each of those areas alone have a steep learning curve. Don't expect to become a SP expert in less than 2 yrs; it may take from 2 to 7 years. Having a good knowledge of ASP.NET, C#, SQL is a plus as well.

I would say yes to your answer if by "good career move" you mean higher salary and better job security. The problem with many developers is that they get excited on a technology, for example, mobile development. They start learning it. Few months down the road, they lose interest in the technology and they start learning some other technology. As long as you focus on SharePoint and don't give up in the middle of the road (bumpy), you will be fine. :)

Focus, determination, and interest in SP is all you need :)

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SharePoint is a .NET application on steroids. You can apply most of your .NET programming skills in SharePoint as well but you need to learn a lot new as well. I am sure you will enjoy the new challenges.

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For what it's worth, I did the reverse. I started in SharePoint and found that I picked up .Net along the way. I guess it really depends. There is plenty to do in SharePoint alone that I feel it is not really going away anytime soon. The other thing to consider is what type of development you want to do and if you can get by with doing only out of the box development. I was doing a lot of .Net stuff in SharePoint and in my current spot it is all jQuery and SharePoint Designer type stuff! I like what I do yes, but still would like to write .Net code! Some places just do not allow that so you have to be careful! Just my 3.14 cents worth (bad pun indeed!)

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  • I'm just looking to learn one paltform. Maybe my C# skills will come in handy once I learn SharePoint.
    – StephenK
    Nov 1, 2011 at 11:01
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Do it! Do it! Do it!

It's tough, there are concepts to wrap your head around, but once you nail it, it looks awesome on your resume. There is also an awesome community available for support, beginner through advanced techniques, you'll never be alone.

But as @Alexander said, I also have seen people come jumping in just to panic and run away. It can be complex, but once you can wrap your head around the big picture of SharePoint, it comes easier and easier.

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  • it comes easier and easier... I don't have so much experience to tell these words... :)
    – Alexander
    Nov 1, 2011 at 11:43
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    I've been at it for a few years, and it does get easier and easier... but then once in a while IT SUCKS, like today ;) Nov 1, 2011 at 13:52
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Yes it's a good career move. If your career is in Enterprise Software.

But think of your long-term career. Always keep on top of latest .NET trends and experiment now and again on stuff that SharePoint doesn't use (like all the new stuff in .NET 4/4.5, and programming for Azure, for example). SharePoint won't be around forever (or, at least, it will evolve tremendously from what we currently know as SharePoint over the next 5 years, I reckon), but it can and will boost your longer term career prospects if you want to go further into Enterprise Software Architecture.

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  • why SharePoint won't going to be around for long. Apr 8, 2013 at 13:56
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    Is that a question or a statement? SharePoint will be around for a fair bit yet. Maybe not in the form you know it as, but it's definitely not going anywhere soon.
    – James Love
    Apr 8, 2013 at 14:39
  • It was a question as you said "SharePoint won't be around forever", so I thought you might would like share what would you think will be around if not SharePoint. Apr 8, 2013 at 15:11
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    Ah, gotcha. Good question though. But all it takes is for a competitor to come up with something else that does the job better for cheaper. MSFT quashed the competition (arguably IBM's WebSphere) but what's not to say something else might just appear out of nowhere in the coming years. We need to stay dynamic and flexible in order to remain employable in the coming years/decades.
    – James Love
    Apr 8, 2013 at 19:20
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in my practice a lot of people leaved SharePoint development. Because this is a big and hard platform. You should learn many technologies and apply many practices. This platform does not fogive you your mistakes. Some times you should spend a lot of time to find the reason of exceptions that are throwed by code wich should works correctly. But after this platform you can work with any technology that you wish. So, go ahead!

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    You know, compared to what I do I can't imagine SharePoint being a big bad beast. I tell you what a beast is. It's different projects with wildly different requirements using many many technologies to make it happen. And to top it off, I suck at UI. I would rather learn one big hard platform then many hard technologies. Can I get an amen?
    – StephenK
    Nov 1, 2011 at 11:03
  • I like this platform. This platform is used by many companies. In the last SharePoint confirence Microsoft sold about 62 million of SharePoint server copies (if I'm not wrong). So this platform is a perspective product. Also you can compare .Net and SharePoint developer salary :)
    – Alexander
    Nov 1, 2011 at 11:15
  • As far as what I've heard, the salary is better as a SharePoint developer than a .NET developer. I wonder if anyone can give me a salary range. Maybe once I've learned SharePoint I can become a contractor and make the big bucks :)
    – StephenK
    Nov 2, 2011 at 9:47
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    @StephenK: "I suck at UI." One of the first things I'm asked on just about every SharePoint project is, "how can we make it looks less SharePoint-y?" If you are trying to escape ASP.NET WebForms, UI, and learning curves, SharePoint might not be for you. Because SharePoint development is all of those things plus a lot of XML. Maybe you can have a career staying in the browser and SharePoint Designer, but if you are ever expected to use Visual Studio, you'll need to know a lot more and not one bit less. Nov 3, 2011 at 20:25
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    Don't dive into SharePoint just because of the salary. Too many inexperienced people are putting themselves forward as 'SharePoint people', trying to get the salary, and being put off at the scope of the platform. They then get put off the entire product and give up. Think longer term (see my answer).
    – James Love
    Dec 23, 2011 at 19:21
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SharePoint is very hot and at this point in time, you don't need a lot of experience to get a position in SharePoint, however like all the others suggested, make sure you are completely interested in SharePoint, don't get started than change in 1 or 2 yrs. Work your way up in SharePoint, learn the skills needed with it. We specialize in doing projects for SharePoint, and I am learning everyday something new on SharePoint.

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I started SharePoint development 14 months ago, not because I wanted to, but because I needed to. SharePoint 2010 is replacing much of the bespoke technical solutions of 5, 10 years ago. Workflows, forms, security, document management, office integration, business intelligence: all these needs can (mostly) be fulfilled with SharePoint. So, from a developer's perspective:

  • fun, challenging technology,
  • growing, expanding technology.
  • in demand. recognized as a cost saver, relative to other start-from-scratch development option.
  • industry standard-esque. If your team develops an application X, and that team leaves, there could be support concerns and loss of knowledge. If your team developed in SharePoint, and the team leaves, hire a SharePoint developer.
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Of course it can happened. As far as I think that how it should happen. Most of the custom designing (especially custom web part, aspx pages, form pages, etc) done in .net (c#). you have to bring you upto speed on the SP classes. (which is not that complicated).

You may want to learn the End user interaction with SharePoint through UI first so you get a good feeling of what all are included.

Also, there are some stuff you can do through Central Admin CA so you can write powershell script to execute those operations.

Hope this helps.

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As one who has taken the similar steps - I am enjoying it! The best-kept secret is that SharePoint is but an ASP.NET framework and almost everything (skills & code) carries over! I give presentations at Codecamp & SharePoint Saturdays based on the same topic -

UPDATE:
In addition to the .NET developer related skills (C#/SQL/ASP.Net), an additional skill that will benefit the SharePoint developer is knowing PowerShell. PowerShell is most useful for the administration, deployment & even some development with SharePoint and all developers need to have a certain level of SharePoint administration knowledge. Here are some useful links -

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