MVP Insights: Alex Meyer on MVP Motivations, Career Journey

Welcome to “MVP Insights,” a podcast that explores the universe, ideas, and opportunities of the brightest stars in the Microsoft business applications ecosystem. 

In episode 51, Giuseppe Ianni talks with Alex Meyer, Principal Software Development Engineer, Delinea, Microsoft MVP, who has been a leading voice in the Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations development, security, and compliance area. They discuss how his career journey led him to become involved in the Microsoft ecosystem, driving forces for his MVP contributions, and what attendees can expect from him at Community Summit North America.

Key Takeaways

• Career journey: Alex has built his career at the intersection of software engineering and enterprise security. He describes always having “a knack for looking at security in the technology space,” which led him on his career journey and becoming involved with the Microsoft ecosystem. His early career experiences led him to find his niche in the Microsoft Dynamics space and he grew with that. As long as it went from on-premise applications to the cloud, he took his focus and knowledge to those areas.
• Projects and challenges: With his current roles, Alex is involved with development and migrations from an on-premise application to the cloud. He has also had the opportunity to take feedback from customers, identify pain points, and work on developing better outcomes. “Taking those scenarios and actually creating a software solution for those are always really, really cool for me,” he says.
• MVP motivation: Throughout his career, Alex has noticed a focus on very technical areas, like security models and licensing systems. In some cases, there isn’t great documentation. His MVP journey essentially started from the fact that there are very few sources of knowledge in and around these areas. He aims to “make it so that others in this space don’t have to go through the same pitfalls and the same challenges that I went through.”
• Community Summit: At this year’s Community Summit North America, Alex will be speaking for both Academy classes and education sessions. He previews what attendees can expect from him during the event. Attendees can gain insights from him in the following sessions:
  • Academy class: “D365FO Development and Administration Bootcamp: A One-Day Deep Dive” on Sunday, October 19th
  • “D365FO Telemetry & Monitoring Deep Dive” on Monday, October 20th
  • “D365FO Security and Licensing Made ‘Easy’” on Tuesday, October 21st