The Low-Code Revolution Has a Governance Problem.
The Microsoft Power Platform—comprising Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI—is a powerful force for digital transformation. It empowers "citizen developers" and professional developers alike to rapidly build custom applications, automate complex workflows, and derive insights from data, all with deep integration into the Microsoft 365 and Azure ecosystems. It promises to dramatically accelerate business processes and reduce the burden on traditional IT departments.
But this "low-code" empowerment is also a massive governance and scalability risk. When an organization's Power Platform adoption is driven by developers who lack a disciplined, architectural mindset, you don't get a portfolio of well-managed, enterprise-grade solutions. You get a sprawling, ungoverned, and insecure collection of "shadow IT" applications that are impossible to maintain, secure, or scale. You get all the speed of low-code development with none of the reliability required for the enterprise.
This playbook explains how Axiom Cortex vets for the hybrid skillset required to succeed with the Power Platform: the architectural rigor of a pro-developer, the data modeling skills of a BI analyst, and the security mindset of an enterprise IT administrator.
Traditional Vetting and Vendor Limitations
A nearshore vendor sees "Power Platform" on a résumé and assumes it's a simple, low-skill competency. The interview process rarely tests for the critical skills in data modeling, security, and governance that are essential for building anything beyond a simple departmental app.
The predictable results of this superficial vetting are a growing crisis in many IT departments:
- Environment and DLP Chaos: Developers build apps in the default environment with no Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies, accidentally creating pathways for sensitive corporate data to be shared with non-business connectors like Twitter or Dropbox.
- Delegation Disasters in Power Apps: A canvas app is painfully slow because the developer has written a filter that cannot be delegated to the data source (like Dataverse or SQL Server). The app pulls the entire 50,000-row table into memory on the user's device to perform the filter, resulting in terrible performance and high memory usage.
- The "Spaghetti Flow" in Power Automate: A critical business process is implemented as a single, 200-step Power Automate flow with no error handling, no comments, and no separation of concerns. When it fails, debugging it is a forensic nightmare.
- Data Model Mess in Dataverse: The team fails to design a proper data model in Dataverse, creating a mess of disconnected tables and lookups that cannot be efficiently queried or secured.
How Axiom Cortex Evaluates Power Platform Developers
Axiom Cortex is designed to find the professionals who think in terms of scalable, governable, enterprise-grade solutions, not just one-off apps. We evaluate candidates across four critical dimensions.
Dimension 1: Power Platform Architecture and Governance
This dimension tests a candidate's ability to design and manage a Power Platform environment that is secure and scalable.
We provide a scenario and evaluate their ability to:
- Design an Environment Strategy: Can they design an environment strategy that separates development, testing, and production?
- Implement Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Policies: Can they design and configure DLP policies to control which connectors can be used together?
- Manage Solutions: Do they have a disciplined approach to packaging their apps, flows, and other components into solutions for managed deployment between environments?
Dimension 2: Power Apps and Dataverse
This dimension tests a candidate's ability to build performant and scalable applications with Power Apps.
We present a complex app requirement and evaluate if they can:
- Design a Performant Canvas App: Can they design an app that uses delegation effectively to ensure good performance on large datasets?
- Model Data in Dataverse: Can they design a robust and scalable data model in Dataverse, using the right column types and relationships?
- Implement Security in Dataverse: Can they design a security model using business units, security roles, and column-level security to enforce least privilege?
Dimension 3: Power Automate
This dimension tests a candidate's ability to build robust and maintainable business process automations.
We evaluate their knowledge of:
- Error Handling: Can they design a flow that includes robust error handling and retry logic?
- Parent/Child Flows: Do they know how to break down a complex process into smaller, reusable child flows to improve maintainability?
- Connectors and Custom Connectors: Are they proficient in using the vast library of connectors? Can they build a custom connector to integrate with a system that doesn't have one?
From Shadow IT to a Governed Innovation Platform
When you staff your team with engineers who have passed the Power Platform Axiom Cortex assessment, you are investing in a team that can turn a potential "shadow IT" problem into a well-governed engine for business innovation. They will empower your citizen developers with a secure and stable platform, while also building the mission-critical, enterprise-grade applications that require professional development discipline.