Greenfield .NET projects are a joy. Clean architecture, modern patterns, the latest NuGet packages. Then you get your look at the codebase that's been running in production since .NET Framework 3.5, and everything you know gets stress-tested. I'll walk through the most common patterns I've encountered in decade-old .NET systems: the tightly coupled monoliths where everything depends on everything else, the business logic buried in SQL stored procedures, the God classes no one dares touch, and the complete absence of any seam to refactor against. Then I'll share the practical, incremental strategies that actually work inside organizations that can't just stop the world and rewrite.

What I hope you walk away with:

How to read and map a tightly coupled codebase quickly so you can find safe entry points.

The Strangler Fig and other incremental modernization patterns applied to real .NET solutions.

How to introduce interfaces, dependency injection, and testability into code that was never designed for it.

When to modernize and when to leave well enough alone (a more important skill than people admit).

Lessons learned from enterprise .NET modernization engagements.

Whether you're inheriting a legacy system or trying to future-proof what you're building today, I hope that I give you a pragmatic toolkit to keep you grounded.