Learn to build an e-commerce app with .Net Core and Angular

OP I was in a similar boat as you and slowly I get out of the situation.

When I joined my last company in early 201x, I mostly worked on .Net 3.x and .Net 4.x based WinForms and windows services. I used to attend a local C#/.Net Meet group where I had a chance to learn about the upcoming .net core stack. I spoke with my manager and talk about all the pains we had with the WinForms app we have and convinced him REST Based API with WinForms app or web apps in the future. I did 1st small REST-based .Net Core 2.1 project. My manager was nice and he signed up the team for Pluralsight. I had my own subscription for a while.

Every time there is a new problem; I first checked Pluralsight to see if is there anything new in .NET core and use that. For example, we used to build services using WinService; but in new .Net Core, there was a concept of Background services so we used that.

In meantime, I knew I don't have much to offer my team and it was my time to get out. But outside most of the company either looking for full stack developer or/and REST Based API developer.

I failed many interviews due to lack of LeetCode style questions or not enough knowledge with REST based APIs or something else. I only targeted senior role jobs so got drilled badly in interviews – one interview was so brutal they asked me all type of questions – when does stack overflows happens, what’s the size of heap, what’s the difference between a dictionary and a sets implantation, how would you shuffle a deck of card and how do you know it’s scuffled etc.

Then, I decided time to learn something new so I stumbled upon a course on Udemy which shows how to build an e-commerce website with .Net Core 3.1 and Angular. This course helped me with a lot of stuff and got exposure to Entity Framework, caching, refactoring code properly, few designs patterns etc.

Eventually, I found a job at a much bigger team with 20% more pay and where most developers are senior than me.

So, I would do the following in your case:

1) Sign up for a local meet up and regularly attend it (now days is mostly virtual)

2) Find good courses on Pluralsight/Udemy and complete them. Build Something that you can show on your resume and market it

3) Keep applying for jobs and go through interviews – it will work as a compass to guide your which area you need to improve on

4) Read technical books

5) Develop de-couple code in another words write unit and integration test for stuff you develop

I still feel scared as many developers know a lot of stuff and I keep asking them questions. I keep pushing my self when I get stuck find a course on Pluralsight and spend evening/weekends going through them. The battle never ends but I am glad that I got out of my last job and part of much bigger team now with decent pay. Nowadays I am learning about K8s and Azure as that is what we use at work.

.net core in action is fairly good book.
the thing which helped me most are the coursers on Udemy by Neil Cummings.
They usually cover both .net backend and the front-end.
like this one https://www.udemy.com/course/learn-to-build-an-e-commerce-app-with-net-core-and-angular/
Not everything up to .net 6 but everything translates pretty much 1-to-1 to .net 6

If you want to pay, check out this tutorial. I'm using it at work as a side project to keep me busy when I have no work and have learned a few new things. For reference I have about 2 years professional .Net experience and I'm able to understand most of it. https://www.udemy.com/course/learn-to-build-an-e-commerce-app-with-net-core-and-angular/

I strongly recommended this Udemy tutorial by Neil Cummings E-commerce app with.net core and angular

I'm not sure about any books, but I have two courses on Udemy that I highly recommend:

Build an app with ASPNET Core and Angular from scratch

Learn to build an e-commerce app with .Net Core and Angular

I highly recommend the teacher and his course with .Net & React was an integral part of me landing my first job.

Good luck

I personally found this course better than that one

Learn to build an e-commerce app with .Net Core and Angular

Even as an experienced ASP.NET developer there are some cool new things to learn from there and he also explains Angular well.

Neil Cummings has 2 other .NET courses on Udemy that are also very good (but the front-end is Angular instead of React).

Learn to build an e-commerce app with .Net Core and Angular

Build an app with ASPNET Core and Angular from scratch

They're all pretty long at around 30+ hours each, but I'd recommend any of the 3 (or all of them). Of course if you're only interested in React or Angular choose the one with the front-end UI library that you want. If I remember correctly, the back-end APIs are constructed somewhat differently for each of the 3 courses, so you each time you're learning new things: CQRS, Specification Pattern, AutoMapper, Repository/Service, etc.

Neil is always active answering questions on the Q&A forum for his Udemy courses, and he's very good at keeping those courses up to date with both the latest back-end (.NET) and front-end libraries (React or Angular).

Here are links to his: Github and his blog which also has great content.