Microsoft · Case study
Cloud Commerce Platform
Commerce services spanning catalog, carts, checkout, orders, fulfillment, and inventory on Azure.

- Role
- Software Engineer: backend services, REST APIs, frontend, testing, and observability.
- Company
- Microsoft
Overview
Work on the Microsoft Commerce Platform: ASP.NET Core services, REST APIs, and Angular interfaces on Azure covering the commerce lifecycle from product catalog to fulfillment.
Problem
Commerce workflows span many domains (catalog, accounts, carts, checkout, orders, fulfillment, and inventory), and each must stay consistent through transactions and failures.
Architecture
- Shopper → Storefront: request, browse
- Storefront → REST APIs: request, JSON
- REST APIs → App Insights: data read / write, logs
- REST APIs → Domain services: request, call
- Domain services ↔ Azure SQL: data read / write, tx
- Domain services → Azure Functions: async event, events
- Azure Functions → Notifications: async event, notify
- Azure Functions → Inventory sync: async event, sync
- Azure DevOps → Domain services: async event, deploy
What made it hard
- Transactional consistency across checkout and orders.
- Synchronizing inventory across systems.
- Running notifications and fulfillment steps asynchronously.
- Diagnosing production issues quickly.
Solution
ASP.NET Core services with Entity Framework Core and Azure SQL handle transactional workflows. Azure Functions process asynchronous work such as notifications and inventory synchronization, Azure DevOps runs CI/CD, and Application Insights provides observability for troubleshooting.
Skills used
- C#
- ASP.NET Core
- Angular
- TypeScript
- Azure
- Azure SQL
- Entity Framework Core
- Azure Functions
- Docker
- Azure DevOps
- Application Insights
Impact
- Delivered services across the full commerce lifecycle.
- Moved slow side effects off the request path with background functions.
- Supported production reliability through automated testing, observability, and troubleshooting.
Decisions
- 01Use database transactions where consistency matters most.
- 02Push slow side effects to background functions.
- 03Instrument early so production issues are diagnosable.