Benjamin Michaelis
Software Engineer at IntelliTect, Co-Author of Essential C#, Spokane .Net User Group Leader
Spokane, Washington, United States
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Benjamin Michaelis is a software engineer at IntelliTect, where he builds cloud-native systems, developer tools, and full-stack .NET applications that help teams ship faster. He has contributed to IntelliTect’s product offerings, including StormingCastle.com and delivered solutions across higher education, utilities, financial services, and startups.
Benjamin is the primary maintainer of EssentialCSharp.com and co-author of Essential C#. In that role, he drives the site’s roadmap, tooling, and developer experience, including recent work adding AI-powered, context-aware documentation search. An active open-source contributor, he publishes NuGet packages, GitHub Actions, and developer utilities used by teams across the industry.
Beyond his professional work, Benjamin helps lead the Spokane .NET User Group, fostering a vibrant local developer community through technical talks, knowledge sharing, and mentorship. He also teaches .NET programming at Eastern Washington University and mentors developers through IntelliTect.
He holds a B.S. in Software Engineering from Washington State University along with multiple Microsoft and GitHub certifications, including Azure Solutions Architect Expert.
When he’s not coding, he’s probably outdoors on a trail, exploring new places with a camera in hand, or spending time with friends and family.
Area of Expertise
Topics
Mastering the Agentic Coding Workflow
Agentic Coding (formerly vibe coding) is transforming software development by shifting developers from typing every line to expressing intent and refining output. In this session, you'll learn practical techniques for AI-augmented development: structuring effective prompts, maintaining context across conversations, guiding AI reasoning, collaborating with AI during debugging, and validating generated code. This session shows how to apply Vibe Coding effectively in everyday development and then follow best practices to move it from prototype to production. You will leave knowing how to leverage AI as a reliable accelerator for shipping code with production-level quality.
Building Custom MCP Servers in .NET
AI assistants are only as powerful as the tools they can access. Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers allow you to expose your own tools, data, and workflows to AI-but how do you actually build one?
In this session, we’ll create a working MCP server from scratch using .NET and the MCP SDK. Starting with a simple project, we’ll explore the core building blocks of the Model Context Protocol; resources, prompts, and tools, and see how they enable AI assistants to access custom capabilities and data.
Then we’ll go further than a local demo. Using a practical sample inspired by the Azure remote MCP functions approach, we’ll deploy our server to the cloud and connect it to an AI client, turning a simple .NET service into something AI agents can use.
Along the way, we’ll look at common pitfalls, debugging techniques, and how MCP servers fit into modern AI workflows.
The Future of Software Development: The Path Forward in a Changing Industry
YIKES! What has happened to software engineering? In this session, we examine the factors contributing to the 25% decline in job opportunities for software engineers. Next, we discuss ways to enhance our career resilience. Where should we focus our learning? Where are the opportunities for future software engineers? What increases our job security, and if we are looking for work, what are the key qualities that make us an attractive employee?
Transforming CI Failures into Focused Debugging with Visual Studio Playlists and AI
When a CI pipeline fails, developers often waste valuable time sifting through large test suites to identify the tests that need attention. In this session, I’ll introduce a tool I developed that automatically converts .trx test results into Visual Studio .playlist files directly within the CI pipeline. This allows developers to download the .playlist file from the CI pipeline and instantly start debugging locally, running only the tests that failed.
A key part of developing this tool involved leveraging AI tools like GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Copilot to accelerate the process. These AI tools helped me quickly understand complex decompiled code, identify key differences between Visual Studio playlist versions, and iterate far faster than I could manually. I’ll demonstrate how AI can assist in the exploration phase, navigate lower-level details, and allow developers to focus on higher-value tasks, such as solving the core problem.
By adopting similar AI-assisted workflows, you can speed up your own development, tackle complex problems more efficiently, and boost productivity in your projects.
Benjamin Michaelis
Software Engineer at IntelliTect, Co-Author of Essential C#, Spokane .Net User Group Leader
Spokane, Washington, United States
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