Building full-stack applications is always an exciting challenge, especially when you want to create something original while sharpening your technical skills. Over the past weeks, I worked on a project that combines Angular 17/18 on the frontend with a .NET 8 Web API on the backend: a Freelancer Marketplace application.

This project was born as both a learning exercise and a way to showcase how to bring together two powerful frameworks. The app integrates authentication, role-based navigation, data persistence, pagination, SignalR for live chat and presence, and various UX touches like modals, guards, and notifications. It is a real-world scenario where clients and freelancers interact on a platform, with administrators keeping the ecosystem in check.

Why a Freelancer Marketplace?

Rather than building a generic CRUD app, I wanted something closer to a real-world product. A freelancer marketplace is perfect because it naturally involves multiple roles, dynamic interactions, and workflows that push both the API and the Angular client beyond the basics.

The application defines three distinct roles:

• Freelancer: builds a profile, adds portfolio items, browses projects, submits proposals, and chats with clients when proposals are approved.

• Client: creates projects, manages incoming proposals, and collaborates with freelancers.

• Admin: oversees the platform with a panel to enable/disable user accounts and monitor online presence in real-time.

Each role has its own dedicated navigation bar and tailored user experience.

Angular Meets .NET

The project began in Angular 17 and was later migrated to Angular 18, making it a good case study for keeping frontend dependencies modern and compatible. On the backend, .NET 8 Web API provides authentication (JWT), persistence with EF Core and SQLite, and real-time capabilities with SignalR.

Some highlights of the integration:

• Authentication & Authorization: JWT tokens handled in Angular via interceptors, with client-side guards preventing unauthorized or disabled users from accessing the app.

• CRUD + Pagination: Portfolio items, projects, and proposals are paginated for smooth browsing.

• SignalR Integration: Real-time chat between freelancers and clients, with unread message counters, presence indicators, and autoscrolling conversations.

• User Experience: Angular guards warn against unsaved changes, modals confirm critical actions, and toasters provide feedback.

Lessons Learned

A few insights emerged while building the marketplace:

1. Folder structure matters: I started with every Angular component in its own folder. While not perfectly organized, it still worked. The project reminded me that iteration and refactoring are natural parts of learning.

2. Angular and .NET pair well: The synergy between Angular’s reactive front-end design and .NET’s structured API made development smooth. Once authentication and SignalR were configured, everything else clicked together.

3. Real-world scenarios force depth: Unlike toy projects, building a freelancer marketplace required thinking through workflows: proposals, approvals, active projects, and messaging. This depth made the integration feel authentic.

Why This Matters

If you’re learning full-stack development, there’s tremendous value in picking a project idea that excites you and has practical complexity. You’ll encounter the kind of challenges that surface in professional applications: handling state, ensuring security, designing APIs for multiple roles, and maintaining clarity in the codebase.

This project is more than just a tutorial exercise—it’s a working demonstration of how Angular and .NET can power a modern, role-based platform where real-time collaboration is central.

Closing Thoughts

The Freelancer Marketplace app gave me the chance to practice integration between Angular 17/18 and .NET 8, explore SignalR real-time communication, and think carefully about user roles and workflows.

For anyone building similar projects, I’d recommend starting small but choosing an application idea with enough moving parts to stay engaging. That’s how you grow not only as a developer, but also as a designer of systems that make sense to real people.

Take the Next Step

If this article helped you understand how Angular can consume a .NET API service in a real-world application, here's how you can continue your journey:

📁 Explore the GitHub Repository – Dive into the repository to examine the Angular app and the API integration. Follow along with the code to reinforce your understanding of consuming and interacting with APIs in .NET.

💡 Share the Knowledge – Know someone who’s learning to work with .NET APIs or Angular? Share this guide with them to help them accelerate their learning and improve their skills.

🖥 Start Coding – The best way to grasp these concepts is by getting hands-on. Take the provided code and experiment with adding new features or integrating other APIs.

👍 Like the Repository – If you find the project helpful, give it a thumbs-up! This will help others discover the repository and benefit from it too.

By engaging with this tutorial and project, you'll build a strong foundation in .NET API, Angular Client integration, ready to implement these skills in real-world applications.