The .NET Creators I Learn Software Design From

Most of what I know about software design, clean architecture, patterns, and the structural decisions that matter as a codebase grows, comes from a handful of people I keep coming back to.

Milan Jovanović for architecture

Milan Jovanović is where clean architecture and vertical slices actually clicked for me. His videos walk through why a particular structure exists, not just what it looks like, which is the part that actually transfers into my own code instead of staying as a diagram I recognize but can't apply.

Nick Chapsas and Balta for the smaller decisions

Nick Chapsas and Balta round it out with the smaller design habits that add up over time rather than one big architectural pattern: how to structure a service, when a class is doing too much, small things I now do automatically without really thinking about them anymore.

Where this actually shows up

The CRUD project I built came straight out of Balta's approach to structuring a coding assessment: build the whole thing first, then refactor toward something cleaner instead of over-engineering from the first commit. That's a smaller lesson than a full clean architecture, but it's one I've actually used, not just watched.

Why I keep following creators instead of just reading docs

Docs tell you what a feature does. These three, and a few others, tell you why you'd reach for it, which is the part that actually changes how I write code day to day, not just what I know exists.