In this episode of The PowerShell Podcast, Andrew Pla sits down with Pablo Correchel, an early-career IT professional who is publicly documenting his PowerShell and learning journey. Just one year into his first help desk role while studying cybersecurity, Pablo shares how consistent practice, sharing what you learn, and embracing beginner questions have accelerated his learning.

The conversation explores escaping “tutorial hell,” using AI as a learning tool instead of a shortcut, understanding objects and the pipeline, and why putting yourself out there is one of the fastest ways to grow in tech. This episode is a reminder that you don’t have to be an expert to contribute... You just have to start.

Key Takeaways:

• Learning in public accelerates growth – Sharing small wins and exercises builds confidence, invites mentorship, and creates unexpected opportunities.

• Understand the fundamentals deeply – Concepts like objects, the pipeline, Get-Help, Get-Member, and Get-Command form the foundation for long-term PowerShell success.

• Use AI strategically – Treat AI as a tutor that challenges you, not a script generator that robs you of learning.

Guest Bio:

Pablo Correchel is an IT support professional based in Florida and a cybersecurity student at St. Petersburg College. With interests spanning cybersecurity, coding, cloud, and Windows environments, Pablo represents the next generation of IT professionals building skills through curiosity, consistency, and community.

Resource Links:

• Pablo Correchel on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/pablocorrechel

• Connect with Andrew - https://andrewpla.tech/links

• PDQ Discord – https://discord.gg/PDQ

• Learn PowerShell in a Month of Lunches – https://www.manning.com/series/learn-powershell-in-a-month-of-lunches

• PowerShell Wednesdays – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdV6Qecn9v0&list=PL1mL90yFExsix-L0havb8SbZXoYRPol0B

• The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube – https://youtu.be/JXgEwLfvwkk

In this episode of The PowerShell Podcast, Andrew Pla is joined by Tara, a longtime IT professional who has officially started her PowerShell learning journey. Tara shares her honest experience transitioning from a GUI-first mindset to learning PowerShell fundamentals, including objects, verb-noun commands, variables, pipelines, and error messages. The conversation captures the real emotions of learning something new later in a career—confusion, frustration, breakthroughs, and growing confidence.

The episode also explores learning strategies like daily practice, flashcards, typing commands instead of copying, and asking “beginner” questions without fear. Andrew and Tara emphasize the importance of community, mentorship, growth mindset, and psychological safety, encouraging listeners that learning PowerShell doesn’t require perfection—just consistency, curiosity, and support.

Key Takeaways:

Guest Bio:

Tara Sinquefield is an experienced IT professional and PDQ team member who is publicly documenting her PowerShell learning journey. Known for her honesty, curiosity, and willingness to ask the questions others may be afraid to ask, Tara represents the many IT pros who are discovering PowerShell later in their careers. Her journey highlights how learning fundamentals can unlock deeper technical understanding, confidence, and new opportunities. She is also a host of PDQ Live every week

Resource Links:

PDQ Discord – https://discord.gg/PDQ

Tara's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tara-sinquefield-894a1a215/

Connect with Andrew - https://andrewpla.tech/links

Tara Writes Her First Script: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa0GYX9_vj8

PowerShell Conference Europe – https://psconf.eu

PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit – https://powershellsummit.org

The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ZaPoS4mGW7s

Microsoft MVP Harm Veenstra, creator of PowerShellIsFun.com, joins The PowerShell Podcast to talk about productivity, consistency, and why PowerShell really is fun. Harm shares how blogging regularly helped accelerate his learning, improve his workflow, and deepen his connection to the community. He also discusses his recent transition to macOS, how he uses PowerShell across Mac, Linux, and Windows, and why modern PowerShell is far more cross-platform than many people realize.

The conversation dives into VS Code extensions, GitHub Codespaces, WSL, Nerdfonts, and practical terminal setups, along with honest thoughts on AI-generated scripts, learning the hard way, and why asking questions publicly is one of the fastest paths to growth.

Key Takeaways:

Guest Bio:

Harm Veenstra is a Microsoft MVP, consultant, blogger, and community contributor best known for PowerShellIsFun.com, where he publishes frequent, practical PowerShell content. He is an active participant in the PowerShell community and a regular conference attendee and speaker.

Resource Links:

Recently retired PowerShell icon Don Jones joins The PowerShell Podcast for a wide-ranging conversation on career ownership, community leadership, and building a life that aligns with what you actually value. Don reflects on the difference between your job and your career, why investing in yourself pays off, and how asking better questions can change the way you influence decisions at work. The episode also dives into Don’s journey as a fiction author, his role in shaping the PowerShell community and Summit culture, and why real success comes from clarity, kindness, and helping others win.

 

Key Takeaways:

• Your employer owns your job, but you own your career—define your destination and build the skills to get there.

• Strong careers are built on outcomes, not tools—focus on saving time, reducing errors, and delivering measurable business value.

• Community scales when you empower others—create space for people to contribute, own wins, and multiply the impact beyond yourself.

 

Guest Bio:

Don Jones is a foundational figure in the PowerShell community, known for his decades of teaching, writing, and advocacy for automation and professional growth. A former Microsoft MVP, Don co-authored the widely influential Learn PowerShell in a Month of Lunches series and helped shape community culture through conferences, mentorship, and leadership. Now retired from full-time work, Don continues writing and publishing fiction, bringing the same clarity and craft to storytelling that made his technical teaching so impactful.

 

Resource Links:

• Don Jones Website and Books – https://donjones.com

• Tech Impact (nonprofit mentioned) – https://techimpact.org

• PowerShell.org – https://powershell.org

• PDQ Discord – https://discord.gg/PDQ

• PowerShell Wednesdays – https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=PowerShell+Wednesdays

Principal Security Consultant and community favorite Jake Hildreth returns to The PowerShell Podcast to talk about building smarter automation, leveling up through community, and creating tools that solve real problems. Andrew shares his “stop trying so hard” theme for the year, how working smarter applies directly to scripting and security, and why getting involved with others is one of the fastest ways to grow in your career.

The conversation dives into Jake’s recent projects including Deck, a Markdown-to-terminal presentation tool built on Spectre.Console, and Stepper, a resumable scripting framework designed for long-running workflows that can’t be fully automated end-to-end. They also explore presentation skills, avoiding “death by PowerPoint,” and why security work requires constantly re-checking assumptions as threats evolve.

 

Key Takeaways:

• Work smarter, not harder — Whether you’re scripting or building a career, small sustainable improvements beat grinding yourself into a corner.

• Resumable automation is a game changer — Stepper helps scripts safely pause and resume, making real-world workflows more reliable when humans or flaky APIs are part of the loop.

• Community turns into real momentum — Contributing, asking questions, and sharing feedback builds skills, friendships, and opportunities faster than trying to learn alone.

 

Guest Bio:

Jake Hildreth is a Principal Security Consultant at Semperis, Microsoft MVP, and longtime builder of tools that make identity security suck a little less. With nearly 25 years in IT (and the battle scars to prove it), he specializes in helping orgs secure Active Directory and survive the baroque disaster that is Active Directory Certificate Services. He’s the creator of Locksmith, Stepper, Deck, BlueTuxedo, and PowerPUG!, open-source tools built to make life easier for overworked identity admins. When he’s not untangling Kerberos or wrangling DNS, he’s usually hanging out with his favorite people and most grounding reality check: his wife and daughter.

 

Resource Links:

• Jake Hildreth’s Website – https://jakehildreth.com

• Jake's GitHub - https://github.com/jakehildreth

• PowerShell Spectre Console – https://pwshspectreconsole.com/

• PDQ Discord – https://discord.gg/PDQ

• PowerShell Conference Europe – https://psconf.eu

• PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit – https://powershellsummit.org

• Jake's PowerShell Wednesday – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdV6Qecn9v0

Newly minted Microsoft MVP David Sass joins The PowerShell Podcast to talk about PowerShell notebooks, terminal tooling, and making automation approachable for teams that are hesitant to touch the console. David shares how he uses Jupyter/PowerShell notebooks as a practical “click-to-run” interface for colleagues, helping them safely run approved automation while keeping the logic documented, repeatable, and under source control.

The conversation also dives into incident response automation, David’s journey from SharePoint engineering into security, and the surprising ways PowerShell can be used across Windows, cloud, and even Raspberry Pi lab clusters—while still staying focused on knowledge-sharing and building systems that don’t depend on one person.

 

Key Takeaways:

• Notebooks can remove friction for teams — combining documentation, code, and saved output creates a safer way for others to run automation without needing deep PowerShell confidence.

• PowerShell scales incident response workflows — David explains how notebooks can log in, pull incidents, enrich data, and even auto-close noise, reducing UI-click fatigue for analysts.

• Teaching makes you promotable — sharing knowledge reduces dependency on you, strengthens the team, and makes it easier for a business to grow your role without risk.

 

Guest Bio:

David is a Microsoft MVP and highly skilled SharePoint Guy who is focusing on Automation, Compliance, Security, Operational Excellence, Quality Assurance and hacking the unexpected out from the technology stack.

 

Resource Links:

Matthew Gill joins The PowerShell Podcast to talk about what it means to be a Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) and how SRE thinking changes the way you approach automation, reliability, and problem solving. Matthew and host Andrew Pla break down core concepts like SLAs, SLOs, and SLIs, and why reliability through planning matters more than rushing straight to the keyboard.

 

They also dig into why PSFramework is worth the dependency for enterprise-grade logging and configuration, how community mentorship (including Fred Weinmann’s impact) can fast-track growth, and why books like The Phoenix Project are game-changing for understanding DevOps culture and constraints.

 

Key Takeaways:

• SRE is software engineering applied to operations — focus on measurable reliability, proper planning, and balancing change with stability using concepts like SLAs, SLOs, and SLIs.

• PSFramework can eliminate “reinventing the wheel” — especially for logging and configuration handling, giving enterprises proven patterns and integrations without custom-built fragility.

• Community is a career multiplier — mentorship, learning in public, and teaching others are some of the fastest ways to build confidence and advance your PowerShell journey.

 

Guest Bio:

Matthew Gill is a Site Reliability Engineer and is the Co-Director of Content for the PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit. He has been a problem solver, systems administrator, and scripter for nearly 20 years. From working in the United States Marine Corps, education, radio, and currently the private sector, the majority of Matt's experience has been focused on solving problems in a variety of interesting and creative ways.Resource Links

Distinguished Software Engineer Ryan Spletzer joins The PowerShell Podcast to talk about building a long-term career in tech through curiosity, continuous learning, and strong community connections. Ryan shares how PowerShell helped shape his path from early work in SharePoint, automation, and identity management to leading AI initiatives at Autodesk, where his team built an internal ChatGPT-style solution using Azure OpenAI before enterprise ChatGPT options existed.

They also dig into AI-assisted coding, mentorship, and how foundational software engineering skills still matter more than ever. Ryan offers practical guidance for using AI tools responsibly, overcoming imposter syndrome, and growing by learning adjacent domains like authentication, networking, and data engineering.

 

Key Takeaways:

• AI is a force multiplier for experienced engineers, but mentorship is critical to help early-career engineers learn how to ask the right questions and avoid “blind troubleshooting.”

• Breadth matters as you level up. Understanding adjacent domains and collaborating well with others becomes a key differentiator at senior and staff levels.

• PowerShell remains a career accelerator. Ryan explains how PowerShell led him into infrastructure automation, identity, and modern auth—and why it’s still his go-to tool for quick, high-impact scripting today.

 

Guest Bio:

Ryan Spletzer is a Distinguished Software Engineer at Autodesk, where he works in an internal organization focused on AI, data, and automation. With a background spanning SharePoint development, .NET engineering, identity systems, and enterprise automation, Ryan has spent years building tools that scale across organizations. He’s also a strong advocate for continuous learning and mentorship.

 

Resource Links:

Jorge Suarez joins The PowerShell Podcast to share his journey into PowerShell, automation, and community contribution. From attending his first MMS conference to building creative and practical PowerShell projects, Jorge talks about how PowerShell became the primary driver of his career growth. The conversation covers his popular Intune Hydration Kit, creative TUI projects inspired by shows like Severance, and how curiosity and experimentation led him to build tools he wished existed earlier in his career.

 

Beyond tooling, Jorge opens up about imposter syndrome, learning in public, and using PowerShell as a force multiplier to automate work, stand out professionally, and think differently about problem solving.

 

Key Takeaways:

Guest Bio:

Jorge Suarez is an Endpoint Platform Engineer and PowerShell enthusiast. Jorge is known for building creative PowerShell solutions—including terminal user interfaces and Intune automation projects. He’s an active community contributor who blogs, shares code on GitHub, and advocates for learning in public.

 

Resource Links:

PowerShell legend Jeff Hicks joins The PowerShell Podcast to talk about what it really means to live in PowerShell every day. From running his entire workflow in the console to building highly polished terminal tools, Jeff shares how PowerShell can be used far beyond infrastructure management—to organize your day, automate personal tasks, and multiply productivity.

The conversation also dives deep into learning PowerShell long-term, embracing small wins, investing in your own career growth, and making yourself “available to luck.” Jeff introduces his newest project, PSIntro, designed to help absolute beginners get started with PowerShell through interactive, localized tutorials and a welcoming splash experience.

 

Key Takeaways:

Guest Bio:

Jeff Hicks is a PowerShell author, educator, and community icon with nearly two decades of experience teaching automation to IT professionals. A long-time Microsoft MVP, Jeff has written multiple books, created countless tools and modules, and spoken at conferences around the world. Known for his practical approach and passion for teaching, Jeff continues to shape how people learn, use, and think about PowerShell.

 

Resource Links: