Microsoft .NET developer / Engineer

Position Title: Microsoft .NET Developer / Engineer (Application Development, 3rd-Party App Support & AI)

Engagement Type: Full-time, Ascend Global Shared Service (GSS) role, hired directly through Ascend HR

Location: Ascend Global Shared Service (GSS), Chennai, India fully on-site/local role

Reports To: Ascend IT (Application Development/AIT team lead), partnering with IT and business stakeholders based in Houston, TX and other Ascend sites

Business Units Supported: Chemicals, Nylon & Engineering Plastic (enterprise-wide application portfolio)

Travel: None — zero travel required for this role

Overview

Ascend Performance Materials is a global specialty materials manufacturer with IT users and operations across multiple regions, including the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Ascend IT needs a versatile .NET developer/engineer who can move across three areas that are often separate jobs: building and maintaining custom .NET applications, supporting and extending the third-party/vendor applications already in Ascend's IT portfolio, and building AI-enabled features into both. This is not a pure greenfield development role — a significant part of the work is keeping existing vendor applications running, configured, and integrated, while progressively introducing AI capabilities (Azure OpenAI, Cognitive Services, ML.NET, or Copilot-style extensions) where they add real value.

This is a hands-on build-and-support role covering all three areas — not a development-only or support-only position. Day-to-day partnership sits primarily with Houston-based IT and business stakeholders, with occasional exposure to users and vendor relationships at Ascend's other global sites.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain custom .NET applications (C#, ASP.NET Core/MVC, modern .NET) supporting Ascend's business processes.
• Support, configure, customize, patch, and upgrade third-party/vendor applications used across Ascend IT, coordinating directly with vendors when needed.
• Build integrations between internal .NET applications, third-party applications, and enterprise platforms (SAP, OneStream, Microsoft Fabric/Power BI, Azure services) using REST/SOAP APIs, message queues, or middleware.
• Design and implement AI-enabled features using Azure OpenAI, Azure Cognitive Services, ML.NET, or Copilot-style extensions — automating workflows, enhancing user experience, or surfacing intelligent insights.
• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines (Azure DevOps) for reliable, repeatable application deployment.
• Write clean, tested, maintainable code following secure coding practices, including unit tests and peer code review.
• Troubleshoot production issues across both custom and third-party applications, including AI-feature reliability and cost/performance.
• Document application architecture, integration points, vendor-app configurations, and AI model/prompt design for long-term support by the internal AIT team.
• Partner with IT and business stakeholders to gather requirements — often ambiguous or not yet fully defined — and translate them into technical designs.
• Track emerging AI capabilities in the Microsoft ecosystem (Copilot Studio, Semantic Kernel, Azure AI Foundry) and evaluate where they apply to Ascend's application portfolio.

Required Qualifications — Must Have

• 3–5+ years of hands-on .NET development experience (C#, ASP.NET Core/MVC, .NET Framework/.NET 6+).
• Experience supporting, configuring, or extending third-party/vendor applications — not exclusively greenfield development.
• Hands-on experience building AI-enabled features using Azure OpenAI/Cognitive Services, ML.NET, or a comparable Microsoft AI stack.
• Experience integrating applications via REST/SOAP APIs, web services, or middleware.
• Strong SQL Server skills.
• Experience with Azure DevOps for CI/CD.
• Clear, professional written documentation habits.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Copilot Studio, Semantic Kernel, or Azure AI Foundry.
• Experience integrating with SAP or OneStream.
• Experience with Power Platform (Power Apps/Power Automate).
• Familiarity with containerization (Docker) or microservices architecture.