From SharePoint Developer to Power Platform Architect: Building Secure and Scalable Solutions with Michel Mendes [MVP]

In this episode of the M365 Podcast, Mirko Peters sits down with Microsoft MVP Michel Mendes to explore his remarkable journey from traditional SharePoint development to becoming a leading Power Platform Architect. Michel shares how he started his Microsoft technology career in Brazil, transitioned from C# and SharePoint development into the modern Power Platform ecosystem, and eventually moved to Ireland to continue building enterprise-grade solutions for organizations worldwide.Throughout the conversation, Michel provides valuable insights into how the Microsoft ecosystem has evolved over the years, the growing role of AI in software development, and why understanding architecture, governance, and security remains critical even in a low-code world. Whether you're a developer, solution architect, IT leader, or Power Platform enthusiast, this episode delivers practical guidance for building scalable and maintainable business applications.

POWER PLATFORM EVOLUTION AND THE FUTURE OF DEVELOPMENT

Michel discusses how Power Platform has transformed application development by enabling both professional developers and technically minded business users to build solutions faster than ever before. He also shares his perspective on how AI-powered development tools such as GitHub Copilot are changing the way applications are designed, prototyped, and maintained.Key topics include:• The transition from traditional development to low-code solutions
• How AI is accelerating software delivery
• Why developers who embrace AI will thrive
• The future of Power Apps, Power Pages, and pro-code development
• The importance of understanding business problems before building technology

BUILDING ENTERPRISE POWER APPS THAT SCALE

Creating an app is easy. Creating an app that remains maintainable, performant, and scalable for years is much harder.Michel explains the architectural principles that separate successful Power Platform implementations from those that struggle over time. He shares practical advice on designing reusable components, improving performance, and creating solutions that can grow alongside business requirements.Topics covered:• Power Apps design best practices
• Building maintainable applications
• Performance optimization strategies
• Reusable components and architecture patterns
• Measuring business value and user adoption

DATAVERSE AS THE FOUNDATION OF MODERN BUSINESS APPLICATIONS

A major part of the discussion focuses on Microsoft Dataverse and its role as the foundation for enterprise-grade Power Platform solutions.Michel explains why Dataverse is much more than a database and how it provides built-in governance, security, authentication, and scalability capabilities that help organizations avoid reinventing the wheel.Learn about:• Dataverse architecture fundamentals
• Security and governance advantages
• Building scalable business applications
• Plugins versus Power Automate flows
• Designing efficient data models

POWER PAGES AND EXTERNAL BUSINESS SOLUTIONS

Michel is widely recognized for his expertise in Power Pages, and this episode dives deep into how organizations can create secure, modern, and scalable external-facing websites powered by Dataverse.The conversation explores when Power Pages is the right choice, how it differs from Power Apps, and how recent innovations are making the platform even more attractive for professional developers.Highlights include:• Power Pages fundamentals
• External portals and customer-facing applications
• React and Angular-based SPA experiences
• AI-assisted website development
• Modern Power Pages architecture

SECURITY, GOVERNANCE, AND WEB API BEST PRACTICES

One of the most valuable sections of the episode focuses on security.Michel explains common mistakes developers make when exposing Dataverse data through Power Pages and outlines practical approaches for protecting sensitive information while maintaining usability.Topics include:• Dataverse table permissions
• Column-level security
• Power Pages Web API security
• Common security vulnerabilities
• Governance and compliance best practices
• Penetration testing and security reviews

COMMUNITY, CAREER GROWTH, AND MVP INSIGHTS

Michel also shares his experiences as a Microsoft MVP and discusses the importance of contributing back to the Microsoft community through blogging, conference speaking, GitHub projects, and social media engagement.For professionals starting their Power Platform journey, he provides actionable advice on certifications, learning paths, and developing a long-term career strategy within the Microsoft ecosystem.This episode is packed with real-world experience, technical insights, and practical guidance for anyone looking to build secure, scalable, and future-ready solutions with Microsoft Power Platform.Wheth

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to another edition of the MC65 podcast.

(00:03):
My today's guest is Michael Mendez,
Microsoft MVP,
solution architect and developer specialized
in Microsoft 365 and the Power Platform.
Michael began his journey with Microsoft technology back in 2008
and spent nearly a decade working as a developer in
the Brazil building deep expertise in
SharePoint development and enterprise solutions.

(00:25):
In 2018 he made the move to Dublin and
successfully fully transitioned from
to the SharePoint development into
modern business application space today.
Michael focused on designing and delivering
enterprise drive solution using power apps,
power automate, data versus power pages,
helping organization build powerful digital expertise

(00:48):
while maintaining securities,
getability and governance.
Yeah, in this episode we will explore
Michael journey through the Microsoft ecosystem,
the evolution of power platform dive into power pages security,
best practice and talk about what it takes to build
a solution that can scan in the real world.
Where can Michael team the show?
Thank you, thank you.

(01:09):
Nice to meet you here in person,
virtually for the first time.
Pleased to be here with you and
yeah, looking forward to our conversation.
Yeah.
You are really long in the Microsoft space in 2008.
Yeah, how did your journey start with Microsoft technologies?

(01:33):
Okay, when I graduated in university,
so I think when I was in university,
I did a few internship programs,
one for my college.
It was like an internal paid project that they
supported like a tuition fee and I worked for six months as well for

(01:53):
like one of the government bodies of the city,
but I didn't work with Microsoft technologies like
until now, until that points.
So my like my in the during college,
I only studied Java and I worked on my internship with PHP.
It's not into which Microsoft.
But then after I finished college,

(02:15):
I was trying to find a job in another city like
I studied in a city called Oru Preto.
It was a small city in Brazil.
Then I was trying to move to Belo Horizonte,
which is the capital city of Minas Gerais.
So there I could get a job in a company that they offered like a training program.

(02:35):
And they trained everyone in Microsoft technologies and I began then my career
studying C#, SQL Server.
And at that point, I did a few projects with Windows Forms.
And it was, I'm just trying to remember the name of technology,
but it was the ASP dot net before the MVC,
I totally forgot the name of it, but web format,

(02:58):
ASP dot net web forms, I think.
So I worked like for a year in projects like this.
And after a year, they were, the company were
inversing SharePoint projects and they picked up a field of
developers to train again in SharePoint.
And then I started working as a SharePoint developer.
And then I career began.

(03:20):
I worked for a long time in Brazil with SharePoint and I slowly started
to be introduced to the Barplatform until I,
now there is only work with Barplatform basically.
That's more or less it.
Yeah, so you have this, I call the traditional development skills.
And how does this apply to the low-code area?

(03:48):
Like, since I always, I was taught to think like this and I tried to do
my best like these in terms of SharePoint itself.
Like, even if we think about low-code like ConvozApps and
everything gets more advanced, from SharePoints time,
there was a lot we could do out of the box without having to write

(04:09):
custom code.
And you should, you should got a developer that doesn't understand
how the platform works.
We would be reinventing the wheel, right?
So like my mentors at that point, they taught me like, hey,
you need to think first, and like, does the feature exist?
Can you do it with configuration first?
If you can't, then we go to Procode Approaches.

(04:29):
And that's what I do now with the Barplatform as well.
So basically, I can say that that reduced a little bit because we
can do a lot with low-code tools now.
So if we think about ConvozApp, see the other DGN apps out of the box
and bar automate?
There's a lot we can do without coding, but still, we see the best

(04:49):
approach.
When we try to do anything with low-code and it fails or it's not
enough, then we go for Procode Approach.
Or if the customer wants something really customized and still
wants to leverage the benefits of governance and the whole
data for security, then I think that's when we build a highly

(05:10):
customized solution.
But always keeping in mind that we need to do security configs
out of the box and all that stuff, right?
And you're really long in this Microsoft ecosystem.
How did you see how it changed over the last year, especially
now with the AI topic?

(05:32):
Yeah, I think it's exciting, but challenging at the same time,
because we need to be keeping an eye all the time in the news
and updates, right?
But to me, I cannot say that things will go in that way, but I
feel that due to the whole world being targeted into developing

(05:54):
Procode apps with AI, I think that's going to be the way to go
going forward.
So far, example, in case of Power Apps, instead of developing
ConvozApps, what's going to be the trend now is develop
code apps, because then you can use Cloud Code or GitHub
to build the apps while still leveraging everything,
like the governance and data of those features and all

(06:15):
security, same for Power Page as well.
The only edge case that I feel that they won't be going
towards that direction are if you don't have premium licenses
for Power Apps, because you cannot use code apps
and Power Page without premium licenses.
So for that case, for example, companies

(06:37):
that they want to build apps with SharePoints, OK,
there's still a use case for ConvozApps.
But I believe, at least from what I see people trying
around, I think the whole-- the LLMs and the agents,
the agent development tools, they are not that good with ConvozApps
as they are with full Procode apps.

(06:59):
So I think we'll see a gap in that point at the moment.
I'm not sure how things are going to spin out in two months,
I'm maybe missing proofs, but that's what I feel at the moment,
too.
And how do you see how has Power Platform, Microsoft Frame,
the day of makeup platform, changed

(07:20):
to the other way organizations approach application development?
You mean in terms of not needing a software that
is less necessarily a software developer to build apps or--
Yeah, and I think one of the keywords
are citizen development.
Yeah, I think, honestly, to me, I feel--

(07:43):
Power Platform empowers more people to be developing apps.
But sometimes I think the term is a bit misunderstood
in terms of it's not that everyone will build apps at the end.
At least to me, I feel that maybe the most impactful apps
that are built are built from people
that they were already very tech-savvy building stuff

(08:06):
with other tools.
So for example, you see a lot of people
that they were power users for Excel for anything in office.
I think you see more impact from those people
touching the Power Platform than someone that maybe doesn't
even want to be very good at saving, you know?

(08:26):
I think not saying that those guys cannot want to build apps,
I think everyone ends up building something,
but in terms of more impact.
And that's my impression, anyway.
I might be wrong, but--
And what will you say, what separates a successful Power Platform
implementation from one that struggles?

(08:51):
Successful.
I think if we measure how many users are really using the apps,
like if we can measure, for example, the number of hours
a process used to take before the digitized process
was in place and how it works now.

(09:13):
Because I think there's no point in people building apps
that nobody uses and making impact, you know?
That's what I feel.
I know every company would have different measures,
but I think that's it.
In terms of how many hours you saved, what was the real impact?
You gathered some reports to just show numbers before and after

(09:36):
the process was implemented?
One of your core specialists is Power Apps.
What makes a good Power Apps to a great one?
I think it's--
if when people think about usability, when
they build an app that's intuitive, and the first thing is not

(09:58):
only building an app, but understanding
the real business problem in what the app is trying to solve,
like really bridging the gap between technology and the people.
Because sometimes when people develop systems,
I think they don't really--
how can I say--

(10:19):
put themselves in the place of the users?
And sometimes they try to solve a problem that doesn't exist
or solve it in a wrong way because there's
mis-inquisitions and things like that.
But I think most of the processes really well-mapped,
and then the app is built with the users in mind.

(10:41):
I think that's the beginning of success.
And how did you start when you build an app?
What's your-- how did you do it?
What's your plan?
OK, usually, it's not that I do it everything myself,

(11:02):
but we would have a BA that talks to business,
and then that the end-of-sensory requirements
talk to the technical people.
Maybe we do some prototype to validate the ideas before
building the apps, do presentations for the users.
If they are happy with the prototypes,
then we go forward developing the app.

(11:23):
I think it's easier like this.
So we just show mockups, and sometimes we
could just figure out, for example, to create prototypes.
And the users give a few ideas and tell what they like,
what they didn't like.
Because sometimes it's easier to fix things
when you show just the prototype instead
of changing the whole data model, how things flow.

(11:44):
I know, nowadays it's even easier, which
I think we can build everything quickly with AI,
but thinking about the way things used to be until now,
it's, I think, that's the approach I used to take until now.
But sometimes, yeah, even with AI,
now, we can just simply build a proof of concept quickly,
show to the users, see if they like it,

(12:05):
and if they don't like it, we throw it away, and you did again.
I just think when it's a system that is running production,
then sometimes we need to modify existing functionality,
maybe going with the prototype way is the best, even now.
And what tips, I think, a lot of people build apps,

(12:26):
but what is your tips to make it, yeah, long term,
main, main, a little bit?
No, sorry, what's the tips to make it, what, say?
The main, maintain, maintain, the ability,
how can we build apps that works long, long, long term?
It depends, it depends if it's kind of a, if it's kind of a,

(12:53):
let's say, one thing, if it's model another, but in general,
I think, if we think, if we think when we build the apps to try
to make everything the most reusable as possible,
instead of like duplicating a lot of code, you know,
because that's something that people sometimes start building apps
and don't think about creating components,

(13:16):
like optimizing those reusable bits of the app.
Also think about performance as well,
like not only build the app, but think,
how is this gonna grow?
Is the platform gonna support it?
Because sometimes as way, you build queries
that they can be slower than the others,

(13:38):
and yeah, I think it's just, think about the performance,
how to reuse components and build the app in a way
that is easy to change if needed.
- I think when we talk about power apps,
or especially we talk about enterprise power apps,

(14:00):
we have also talk about data worse.
What role do those data worse play
in creating scalable solutions?
- Hmm, I think it's, honestly,
if the person who is building solutions understands data
worse, well, they will be able to like map how to build

(14:24):
the queries in the apps correctly in a performance way,
or if they wanna do pro code stuff,
for example, plugins versus creating flows,
like if you understand that thing back
that the excessive use of plugins
having the environment can slow it down
versus some functionality you can transfer to flows,

(14:45):
I think it's good.
And in terms of data worse,
like what role it would play,
I think it's, I won't say it's only data worse,
but it's a power platform overall,
because when you build a solution in top of data worse,
you don't need to be reinventing the wheel in terms of
configuring data models, security and all of that.

(15:08):
That sort of helps in governance as well.
So the users need to think about the focus,
the developers would need to focus more on how to develop
the apps, the code or configuration bits,
and not worry about authentication security
in all the other aspects,
if that is configured correctly.

(15:29):
Let's see.
- I think another topic you are also in is its power page,
and power pages.
Well, listen now there,
I'm familiar with those power pages.
How would you describe these platforms?
- How would I describe power pages
comparing to power apps and the rest is it?

(15:50):
- Yep.
Well, I'd say in summary,
think of power pages for external users,
power apps for internal users,
because you cannot be exposing power apps
for external users.
And then if you need to have external people
to interact with data versus our pages is the way to go.
Obviously, you don't need power pages to do that.

(16:11):
You could build a map with dot-map that connects to data
versus, but the way power pages built is like,
it's very quick to spin up a solution.
It has the same benefits as using data
versus for internal stuff.
So for example, when it comes to security, exposing only
some bits of data or others,
and having more restrictions or of what people can or cannot do,

(16:35):
you can do it, you can do everything out of the box.
You don't need to develop code for that.
So if you know everything you are doing exactly,
you can simply configure like what tables you want to expose
to the public, what are the exact data roles
that the users can have access,
what the actions they can do and everything,

(16:55):
just with configuration.
So even if the developer tries to help
and say over-expose data that users shouldn't see,
if the permissions are configured correctly,
that won't happen, I think.
That's the benefit.
- And what types of business scenarios are ideal for power pages?

(17:17):
That's just a little fun.
- In my opinion, in my opinion, it justifies the investment
if the company already has data versus foreign telephone processes.
Because then you get a real benefit of it.
So like you already have a lot of power apps,
kind of as apps or model driven apps,
running up business processes

(17:37):
and you need to expose part of its external users.
I think that's when power pages shines
because you can spin up a website very quickly
without those benefits and said.
But I don't think like in my opinion,
and I think it's even a common agreement
among the community that you can actually create
power pages connecting to different data sources,

(17:59):
but it's not the bigger strength.
The main one is with data versus.
- It works.
It works, but I think the company is gonna get more benefits
with data versus.
- Okay.
Yeah, why are so many companies,
they are just phasing with external portals

(18:22):
they are often challenging them.
Yeah, I think, yeah, it's, I don't know.
I have the feeling a lot, they have not these concepts.
I think it's, yeah, I think a little bit about it.
It's an edit on for dynamic.
So, how will you describe

(18:45):
what makes a good port external portal?
- I think, nice UI, which sometimes is not the easiest thing
to do, which you use only other box components,
but it can be achieved like with a few CSS styling
and as well, okay, nice UI, I think

(19:08):
that there's also need to think about performance
because if you have portal, there's a few things we can,
we can tweaking the part page's website
to improve performance, but basically,
if the portal is not fast,
they use it just gonna be low because the users who like it,
you know, so I think it's like they have to be friendly

(19:30):
and fast and also the same way as for business,
internal business users, if you are proposing
a portal for external people, just trying to think
of what problem the portal is trying to solve
for your external people.
Maybe it's a problem, but not their problem,
I think it should be a combination of both.

(19:52):
Like it helps them to help you basically,
helps them to help your clients, that's it.
- And yeah, when I think a little bit about,
you're a long time in these power pages,
how have the power pages evolved over the last years?

(20:13):
- Yeah, I think over the last years,
the bigger improvements that we had initially
power pages wasn't solution-aware,
so now they can be part of solutions
and leverage all the new governance benefits
of Power Platform, like the,
I can say the Power Platform pipelines

(20:34):
and all governance stuff that we have,
environment variables and some minor things,
but I think now as well, this is very recent,
I think there's been a huge investment
on a few pro-code items in Power Pages,
so for example, now there's server logic,

(20:54):
that is basically similar to what you do
with Azure Functions, you can create your server
logics in Power Pages, code that runs on the server sides,
that can interact with external services,
Azure Functions or other APIs you have
without exposing client secrets and exposing our logic
on JavaScript.

(21:15):
There's also an annual type of website
that's the SPA website, so basically,
you will be building a Power Pages website
using React or Angular, so instead of building a website,
using web templates and configuring everything from scratch,
like we used to do with the standard portals,
you can simply create a portal using those languages

(21:38):
and they interact with Power Pages using the web APIs,
and you simply need to do configuration stuff,
like configure table permissions, the roles and et cetera.
And I think that type of portal is a big update,
a big improvement for the platform,
because of two things, it brings more developers

(21:58):
to work with the Power Platform,
because previously, if you wanted to create the pages
and the Power Pages, you need to understand the liquid language
that it's a language created by Shopify
that not all the developers know, and sometimes they hate it,
it was a bit more convoluted how we create the JavaScript files

(22:19):
and everything, and now it will be just a single web
from the end project, where devs can work
as if they worked in React or Angular,
just simply files life, I think.
And also, you can use yellow limbs now,
so for example, there's a cloud plugin
to create the SBA website, so instead of creating everything

(22:41):
from scratch, you can describe it,
and then AI creates a version of the website for you,
and then you simply tweak if something is needed.
I think it's going in the right direction.
- It's then similar to Power Apps Code Apps,
or how do you work?
- It's the same, it's just a different platform,

(23:03):
but it works very similar.
- Okay. - Yeah.
- And what did you think, how looks the future for Power Pages?
- I think the day people will build only the new type of app,
the SBA apps, same way as I said for Power Apps,
as well, I think that's gonna be ramping up very quickly,

(23:27):
in my opinion.
If we follow the trend of people using AI agents
to build apps, those two apps are the best ones
to build it in AI anyway.
- Another topic you're also in, it's a security topic.
- Yeah.
- Why is it important for Power Pages developers

(23:51):
or Power App developers?
- Yeah, I think I'm more,
I used to post more or talk more about
Power Pages security in Power Apps, to be honest,
because I noticed when I did a few presentations on the topic,
I noticed a few developers around that they were a bit unaware
of some, not constraints, how can I say some vulnerabilities

(24:16):
that you can bring, if you are not aware of how client side
code in works and what you can expose or not with code,
because sometimes even that concept of, okay,
that's everything low code, bring up you want to build a site,
bring up you want to build an app,
I think it's fine if it's an internal let,
maybe people misconfigure something on the dataverse,

(24:36):
it's gonna be exposing.
Generally, it's a problem, but it's not a problem
as big as if you expose that to external people.
So for example, I know it's not the right approach,
but okay, you see cases around that people
instead of tricking proper security roles on the dataverse,

(24:56):
they simply hide the data in a canvas app with filters,
which is not the right approach, okay?
But if the user's not able to save it,
they won't be fighting it in your company.
Okay, it's a problem you need to map,
but if someone can access it,
it's gonna be someone internal,
it's not gonna be all the world accessing it.

(25:18):
In new part pages, if you have a public website,
if you, for example, set permissions of a table to be global,
everyone with a login figure website can access the data
of that table.
And if that table is enabled with a web API
and the developer doesn't know how to correctly
configure permissions like, as if they put it as global,

(25:39):
everyone can access the data if they simply guess
the address of the table and point
and do some old data queries, you know?
It's very easy to find, but if you configure properly,
the users will see only the records they should have access
to see, modify, whatever.
I just thought there was a bit of lack of awareness

(26:02):
in the less experienced developers,
so I just, I thought it would be beneficial
to be talking about it and writing articles
and posts about it, basically,
just to bring awareness of what are the features,
what you should be paying attention to, you know?
- Okay, and can you, yeah, for people,
they are not familiar with web API,

(26:27):
can you a little bit explain what is this and how do we...
- Yeah, so basic web APIs and interface,
you can use to access data for data via JavaScript,
but everything that you will use JavaScript to call
runs on your browser.
So basically, when you enable those web API endpoints

(26:48):
of people to update data, to read data in your website,
you need to be very careful on what you enable or not,
because if you enable, if you are not careful,
then what can I say?
You can, you can expose fields, you shouldn't expose,
you can expose items, you shouldn't be exposing publicly,

(27:12):
but if you configure permissions properly
and you enable strictly what needs to be enabled,
then your users would see exactly what they need to see.
So it's a way they can interact with dataverse programmatically
via JavaScript, but you need to be very careful
because if the users can interact with,
like if JavaScript can interact with a web API,

(27:33):
anyone opening developer tools in Chrome can do the same.
So if they via JavaScript can access data that they shouldn't,
that's a problem, you know?
(laughs)
And how did we secure, yeah, there's web API?
- You can enable, there's three things you can do.

(27:55):
Limit the fields, you enable the web API.
So by default, no table is enabled on the web API.
Then you enable a table on the web API,
but you can only enable certain fields, point number one.
Then you can also put table permissions on that way.
You have to put table permissions on that table anyway.

(28:18):
So what's gonna happen is when you put table permissions,
you can specify if the user has global access in the table,
they have account access or contact access.
So if they have contact access,
they only have access to the records assigned to their contacts.
They cannot see or modify records made by other people

(28:40):
if they shouldn't.
When you put account level, it's to the accounts
that they're contacted styles to.
Then you can be tweaking the relationships to make that work
the way you want, but just bear in mind,
there has to be a relationship to the account
or the contact of the user.
And the other thing you can do is you can configure also

(29:02):
the column permissions.
So you can put column permissions in the table.
So for example, you have a table where you need to enable
10 fields of the table in the web API,
but the users should be able to update only five of them.
You can do it.
So I can create column security profiles where you say,
hey, all the fields should be enabled for read

(29:27):
except those five fields, they should be enabled
for data and create as well.
And there you go, or even remove values and things like that.
And in terms of the web API, that's the critical bits,
I'd say, it's very mind like if the users can access it,

(29:49):
if JavaScript can access it, anyone with the permissions
could access it by developer tools.
If they don't have access to the record, that's fine.
If the permissions are set correctly,
nothing bad is gonna happen.
So there's that you have to look at,

(30:10):
attackers cannot, yeah, say, inject,
check or something.
I think that's it's, yeah, it's all about only
what happens, it's a little bit more even than internal.
But how will you say, did you balance between usability,

(30:32):
security,
when you develop and power, power pay?
- It's hard to say because at the end,
they I think we need to do some audits in terms of security.
Even if the portal is usable, I think,
before going live, we have to do like a penetration testing

(30:53):
to find if there's any gap in security.
There's also a power pages, the security agent,
there's the security reports that the product itself
shows something that you should be configuring.
Everything I said, for example,
this thing of having a table with global permissions,

(31:17):
you can get some audits on top of that as well,
and then you need to petition to all those audits flag you
and fix it.
But in terms of balancing your line security,
I don't think one affects the other thing, essentially.
It just before you put aside life,

(31:37):
do those checks, do the audits, run a pentase as well,
and fix, but the thing is,
if the developer has everything I said in mind at first,
there's gonna be less problems when that moment comes
before all life, because you put everything with that in mind,
so less things to adjust to.
And did you see, say, we have we new risk,

(32:01):
especially through co-pilot or AI,
is there a new threat actually?
- To be honest with you, I am not aware
why things are of prompting jacks,
and things like that, I didn't check too much.
Yeah.
- Yeah, and we will say,

(32:25):
when we take about the top AI topic,
how did you find, how has it changed the world,
power platform experience for you?
What would you say?
- Well, I think it's just, for example,
the speeds up doing bug fixes
or creating prototypes, basically.

(32:47):
I'm saying about just to help co-pilot, basically.
Because I think like GitHub, co-pilot, or cloud is what people
are using to build the apps.
Spades up a few things.
Obviously, I think it works best to fix small bugs
or maybe creating something new
and always issue interact with existing apps.

(33:09):
It's a bit, the results are a bit unpredictable.
You need to be watching out,
but at least it helps in terms of generating proof of concepts
and small bug fixes, that's what I see so far.
- Yeah, a lot of people say,
"I will replace developers."
Did you think that will happen

(33:30):
or do the role only change?
- No, I don't think AI will replace developers.
AI can replace developers that don't use AI.
Because like, I'm not saying you should build everything
with AI, but for a few bits, you can,
you definitely will have to speed up the process.

(33:54):
So for example, like I said, maybe some small bug fixes,
creating prototypes and creating proof of concepts,
at least, I think that's not a toy.
There's no point on validating if something works or not
and you have to build everything from scratch
when you can SKI to build it for you quickly
and you just see how it behaves.
But I think like how those agitals are evolving,

(34:17):
that's gonna be only increasing,
even for the building bigger applications and so far.
There's always gonna be a human interaction with it
or a need of reviewing the apps that are developed.
And it's funny enough, as well,
the trend we are seeing in the recent tweaks
that companies are starting to evaluate

(34:40):
the benefits of building apps with AI versus the consumption
and money spent with tokens and everything because,
I think there's a big hype with it and how can I say,
the best developers will be the ones that use it
when it's really needed and with the less consumption

(35:04):
as possible.
Like they know how to prompt the prompt correctly
and bring the best outputs for the companies.
Because it's really easy to start asking a lot of things
and burn a lot of tokens and don't get,
like you can build an app, but maybe you build an app,
but what was the impact of that app?
Like you just burn tokens for knocking

(35:24):
or did it really make a difference?
- Yeah, I think there was things in meme,
where stands the developer costs, costs, I don't know,
$68,000 and then per year and then the other side shows,

(35:47):
tokens spend one month, 300,000.
So, take it, if the developer gets a bit job-making.
Yeah, but you are also, yeah, in Microsoft MVP.
So, it's, yeah, I say, community award.

(36:08):
What did you do especially in the community?
What's your community work?
- I started when I got to be awarded,
was really, it was doing pandemic,
post-pandemic times for COVID.
So, I had a friend that, he was an MVP at that time

(36:29):
and he had a blog and he was motivating me to write more
than I started to write more for my blog.
I did a few presentations as well,
like a few sessions, conferences,
there was a few at that point,
I used to contribute to the Microsoft PNP,
Microsoft 365 PNP,

(36:51):
so there was a GitHub repo with part-platform samples
and SharePoint list formatting samples,
I used to contribute with that as well.
And then slowly, my main focus now is,
write the blogs, present them conferences,
sometimes I put a few samples on GitHub as well.
But yeah, I think many of the blogs and a few conferences.

(37:13):
- That's the, and also been active on social media,
like posting updates or any tips or anything.
- I think all the information puts in the show notes
with all the links.
And then what advice would you give someone
who will start with power platform journey today?
- Let me think.

(37:38):
Honestly, but it's not only today,
I think sometimes like today,
I think the certification paths changed a little bit,
but I just always thought that,
I know it's just a credential,
but if you don't know where to be in,
get a certification learning path and study that,

(37:58):
or try to get the certificate for two reasons,
because it gives you a learning path to follow
and you get exposure of all the features,
you understand more or less how it works,
and you also get credentials to help your CV,
you wanna find a job.
So I think that's a way to go.
Sometimes even if you start working with a power platform

(38:21):
by yourself, not only a power platform,
but any Microsoft related technology,
you probably will be touching only the features
that you are requested to work with at your job.
So if you get a certification or a learning path,
it's good at least you get the awareness
of what you can do with the platform
and what you can do,

(38:43):
and that gives you more room to grow.
So even if you are not very proficient with a feature,
when you have a problem, you know,
hey, maybe that could help me to solve this problem.
And you can start playing around and learning more, you know?
- Yeah, and all sessions, I do a quick fire round.
So I give you a consentence and you say,

(39:08):
what comes in your mind.
So yeah,
power apps or power pages?
- I'd say power apps because it's,
that's what gives more impact to people
because power pages is very good,
but it has a very niche use case.

(39:29):
Okay, that's because I'm thinking about impact and usage overall.
- What's better SharePoint, classic or SharePoint?
- Modern SharePoint.
- Calmances or model driven apps?
- Model driven apps.
- Data, data was on that RSQL.

(39:49):
- He depends, I have to say data was because I work more
with the power platform, but yeah, each one has its benefits.
- What's your favorite JavaScript or C#?
- To be honest, I don't have a favorite.
I liked program with both.

(40:15):
If Microsoft give you the control over the power platform
roadmap for one day, what's the first feature you add
and what's the first thing you will need?
- First feature, I would, I would add,
I would improve how multi-developer story works
with power pages because it's always a bit tricky.
And the other one is the first feature I would,

(40:36):
I would need are,
I don't know, like I think both answers are the same.
I would just put more effort on improving multi-developer
story within power pages.
I think it's improving overall, but could be better.
- Yeah, solution architect or developer?

(41:00):
- Solution architect.
- Co-pilot or manual coding?
- So a copilot or manual coding?
Honestly, I prefer manual coding.
You can do I use copilot first of all.
I have more fun if I have problems to solve myself.
- Dark mode or light mode?
- Dark mode.

(41:22):
- Remote work or office work?
- Remote work.
- Microsoft build or Microsoft unite?
- Microsoft build.
- Coffee, tea or energy during development?
- Coffee.
- And I'm addicted to coffee.
- Brazil or island?

(41:43):
- I have to say Brazil even though I live in Ireland
because it's my home country.
- Yeah, if you stranded on the desert island
with internet access,
but you only can use one Microsoft product forever.
What do you choose?
- Bye.
- Little question.

(42:06):
- My God, man.
- They won't drive, won't drive because if I'm on internet,
if I'm on a stranded island,
I just want to won drive to save my pictures
and personal stuff.
I'm gonna be caring about work.
- Yeah, and yeah, my last question, our final question is,

(42:31):
when people think about, yeah, the session today,
what's the one piece they took with them?
- I think just they see that a person can maybe shift
the career in different paths as I did,
like from the SharePoint to parapsed the parapages.

(42:52):
And also the explanation about importance
of security in parapages as well,
because I just think it's important to bring awareness
to people and like the questions you made,
it helped me to try to explain the importance
of it, that's it.
- Yeah, yeah, then, yeah, thank you for this fantastic conversation.

(43:14):
Yeah, and all your insight about power platform architecture,
power pages security, pro code, custom action,
and yeah, the evolution of traditional development
to modern business applications.
Yeah, I think one of the key takeaways for me
is that successful power platforms
that are just about building quickly,

(43:36):
they are designing security, scalable,
powerful and creating experience
that deliver a long-term value.
And yeah, thank you.
I hope you have enjoyed this episode.
And yeah, I did.
- It was great.
As soon as possible.
- Thank you for inviting me.
It was a pleasure.
- Thank you.

(43:57):
Bye, have a nice day.
- Bye, good to you.
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