Azer Mehtiyev holds a Ph.D. in Economics and works as an Associate Professor at Azerbaijan State University of Economics, where he lectures on industrial economics, economy of business firms and economics of oil industry.

Azer Mehtiyev has also been chairing the Support for Economic Initiatives Public Union (SEI) since 2007. SEI mainly carries out researched and implements projects on economic and social issues. A.Mehtiyev's main research topics include transparency and accountability in the extractive industry, rational use of oil revenues, efficient management of public funds and state budget, business and investment climate as well as local self-governance.

Meantime, Azer Mehtiyev delivers trainings on the management of state budgetary revenues and expenditures in the Eurasia Extractive Industries Knowledge Hub at Khazar University.

A.Mehtiyev was a member of multi-stakeholder group on Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and served in the Board of the Coalition for Increasing Transparency in the Extractive Industries of Azerbaijan from 2013 to 2015. He was actively involved in elaborating the EITI reports on Azerbaijan and developing the Coalition's opinions on these reports.

A.Mehtiyev was a member of the Steering Committee in the National Budget Group from 2005 to 2014, participated in elaborating opinions on the draft state budget and annual report on budget execution, authored a number of studies geared to enhancing transparency, accountability and efficiency in the management of public funds and state budget. He was an Associate Editor of the economic newspaper "Ekonomiks" in 1995-1998, and worked as a General Director for the economic magazine "Ekspert" in 1999-2007.

In recent years, Azer Mehtiyev has conducted researches into business and investment climate in Azerbaijan as well as elimination of administrative and other obstacles to entrepreneurial development in various areas of economy.