Technology has always been about two things: the joy of coding and the joy of sharing what I’ve learned with others.
By Guest Blogger Sonu Kapoor
Early Contributions and Community Building
Nearly two decades ago, my curiosity about ASP.NET sparked something bigger than just learning a framework. I started writing technical articles, not just to document what I was learning, but because I wanted to make the path smoother for developers coming after me. To my surprise, some of those articles became the most-read in their categories.
That success pushed me to take a bigger leap. I founded DotNetSlackers, one of the earliest community hubs for .NET, built in ASP.NET 1.0 with MS SQL Server as the backend and dozens of SSIS packages to automate SQL jobs. The site ultimately reached more than 33 million views and hosted contributions from over 100 authors. For many developers, it became their first doorway into ASP.NET and modern web practices. I eventually retired the platform after more than a decade of activity, and I am no longer affiliated with the domain that exists today, but its legacy remains part of the shared history of the .NET community.
This commitment to community earned me recognition as a Microsoft MVP for ASP.NET in 2005, a distinction I proudly held for several consecutive years. More than the award itself, it symbolized that my contributions were making a global impact through mentorship, writing, and building spaces where developers could thrive.
Growing Through Enterprise Experience
As my career advanced, I carried that same mindset into the enterprise world. At Citigroup, Cisco, Sony, and American Apparel, I wasn’t just building systems; I was solving problems that impacted thousands of users and billions of dollars in transactions. From global trading platforms for bonds and swaps to RFID-enabled enterprise retail systems, my “why” was about reliability and trust: creating mission-critical software people could depend on just as developers depended on the knowledge I shared through community work.
Coming Full Circle
In 2024, more than a decade after my first MVP, I was re-awarded the MVP in Developer Technologies this time for my work with Angular and AI-powered applications. By then, my “why” had expanded. It wasn’t just about teaching anymore; it was about shaping the tools themselves.
I helped co-author Angular’s Typed Forms (the most upvoted feature request in Angular history), authored multiple books, including AI-Powered App Development, Beginning JavaScript Syntax, and Practical Angular Signals. I have also joined the ranks of both Google Developer Experts (GDE) and the exclusive Angular Collaborators program (one of only 11 worldwide). Besides that, I became the core maintainer of ngx-layout, an open-source Angular library that now receives over 25,000 weekly downloads, helping developers across the globe structure applications more effectively.
Why keep pushing forward? Because the ecosystem is bigger than any one of us. If I can influence a framework used by millions, or an open-source project relied on by tens of thousands each week, I can multiply my impact in ways I never imagined back when I was writing my first ASP.NET articles.
A Legacy of Mentorship and Innovation
Today, I continue to balance writing, mentoring, and enterprise engineering while also speaking at international conferences to share what I’ve learned with the wider community. I’ve seen firsthand that a single article, a single community, or a single open-source feature can change the course of someone’s career.
My journey from creating DotNetSlackers to contributing to Angular is not just about recognition. It’s about building a culture of sharing, mentorship, and innovation that will outlast me.
The MVP award has been an incredible honour, but I’ve always seen it as a milestone in a much larger journey of lifting others and shaping the future of technology.
Want to join Sonu and others to make a difference?
Nominate someone, share your journey, or encourage the next generation of innovators to join the MVP community. Learn more about the MVP Program on the MVP Communities site. Follow us on social media on X and LinkedIn.
Microsoft