The PowerShell Podcast

By PDQ.comTechnology

The PowerShell Podcast episodes

May 18PowerShell After Dark: OnRamp, IoT, and Finding Your People.
It's PowerShell After Dark. Recorded live at the PowerShell & DevOps Global Summit in Bellevue, Washington, host Andrew Pla takes his mic to the hotel bar for a series of candid conversations with attendees. The episode features four guests: Josh Gratton, an OnRamp scholarship recipient whose career pivot to junior systems engineer was fueled by PowerShell and the podcast; Mark Go, a first-time Summit speaker and attendee; Craig Mileham, a fellow podcast listener and Summit first-timer working in higher ed IT; and Matt Zaske, a longtime community member, conference speaker, and IoT enthusiast who ran a Home Assistant lightning demo. What connects all four conversations is the same thread Andrew keeps pulling on: community makes everything better. Beginners belong here. Reach out. Take the risk. Start now.

Key Takeaways:
The OnRamp scholarship program is genuinely life-changing for early-career IT professionals. Josh Gratton's story, from service desk to systems engineer to Summit attendee, is a direct line from PowerShell to career transformation, and it started with applying for a scholarship he poured his heart into.
Showing up in person changes something. Every guest in this episode described the in-real-life version of the PowerShell community as warmer, more welcoming, and more accessible than they expected. The gap between "online community" and "your people" closes fast when you're in the same room.
Reaching out is not just encouraged, it's the move. Andrew makes the case clearly: the people who message him, who post in Discord, who ask questions in public, those are the ones he sees succeed. Suffering in silence is optional. So is waiting.
Guest Bios:
Josh Gratton is an IT professional who made a mid-career pivot from 15 years in a different field to the service desk, then leveraged PowerShell automation to earn a promotion to his company's systems engineering team. A 2026 OnRamp scholarship recipient, Josh attended his first PowerShell & DevOps Global Summit in Bellevue and left planning to present at a future Summit and bring a colleague along next year.

Mark Go is an IT professional and active member of the PDQ Discord community who attended the 2026 PowerShell & DevOps Global Summit. He served as Andrew's cameraman during the Summit's After Dark session and is known in the community for his IoT work, including speaking at Summit. He's a returning podcast guest, Powershell Wednesday and Summit speaker. Mark brings a hardware-forward perspective to PowerShell, with interests in soldering and embedded systems.

Craig Mileham is a PowerShell Podcast listener and Summit first-timer who works for an MSP in the higher ed space. He attended this year's Summit to absorb as much as possible and left energized to build internal tools for his help desk team and share what he learned at PowerShell Wednesday. This guy is really awesome

Matt Zaske is an IT professional, conference speaker, and community member based in Minnesota. A regular presence at events like MMS, Matt is also an avid Home Assistant enthusiast who bridges the gap between PowerShell and IoT hardware. He ran a lightning demo at the 2026 Summit, taught attendees how to solder, and blogs regularly at mzonline.com. You can also find him on LinkedIn and Bluesky. 3d printing legend. GET ON HIS LEVEL

Resource Links:
PowerShell & DevOps Global Summit: https://www.powershellsummit.org
OnRamp Program and Scholarship: https://www.powershellsummit.org/on-ramp/
The PowerShell Podcast on PDQ.com: https://www.pdq.com/resources/the-powershell-podcast/
PDQ Discord (Learn PowerShell channel): https://discord.gg/PDQ
PDQ Careers: https://www.pdq.com/jobs/
Connect with Andrew Pla: https://andrewpla.tech/links
Matt Zaske's Blog: https://www.mzonline.com
The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Y_GDB0e8xHY
1 hr 5 min
May 11Splatting, Automation, and Chasing the Sun with Jess Pomfret
Jess Pomfret returns for her third appearance on the PowerShell Podcast and brings the same energy that keeps people coming back. She and Andrew cover a lot of ground, starting with her upcoming "Chase the Sun" charity cycling event where she'll attempt to ride 205 miles coast-to-coast across the UK in a single day, starting at sunrise on the longest day of the year and racing the sun to the finish line. It's a big undertaking, and she's riding to raise money for Momentum in Fitness, a charity her wife works for that brings fitness opportunities to older adults, kids in non-traditional school settings, and children with cancer.

On the technical side, Jess makes the case for PowerShell splatting as an underrated beginner concept that makes code dramatically more readable. She walks through the idea of pulling parameters out of a long command line, organizing them into a hash table, and passing that hash table to the command instead. It's one of those things experienced scripters take for granted, but seeing it for the first time is genuinely useful.

The conversation also gets into Desired State Configuration (DSC), where Andrew and Jess dig into what it is, how it works, and why it matters for sysadmins who want to maintain consistent configuration across their environments. Jess also opens up about managing a packed schedule between her day job, speaking, podcasting, LinkedIn Learning courses, and serious bike training. Her answer is honest and relatable: she's still figuring it out, but Todoist and a very supportive partner help a lot.

Key Takeaways:
Splatting is one of the most readable improvements you can make to your PowerShell code. Instead of chaining parameters into one long command, you load them into a hash table and pass that to your command with an @ symbol. Cleaner to write, easier to read, and especially useful when you're sharing code on a screen.
DSC lets you define what a system should look like and PowerShell handles the work of getting it (and keeping it) there. It's a mindset shift from scripting manual steps to declaring an end state, and it's particularly powerful in large environments where consistency matters.
Having a support system is one of the most underrated factors in being able to sustain a high-output career alongside community contributions. Whether it's people around you who help carry the load or finding your people in the data and PowerShell communities, you can't do it alone indefinitely.
Guest Bio:
Jess Pomfret is a Data Platform Engineer and a dual Microsoft MVP. She's been working with SQL Server since 2011, is a maintainer on the dbatools open source project, co-host of the Finding Data Friends podcast, and a LinkedIn Learning instructor. She grew up in the south-west of England and now lives in the US. Outside of tech, she's an avid cyclist, padel player, and a devoted fan of proper football.

Resource Links:
Connect with Jess on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jpomfret
Connect with Andrew: https://andrewpla.tech/links
Jess's blog: https://jesspomfret.com
Support Jess's Chase the Sun ride for Momentum in Fitness: https://www.justgiving.com/page/jess-pomfret
Finding Data Friends podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@findingdatafriends/videos
dbatools – PowerShell module for SQL Server automation: https://dbatools.io
Jess's previous episode on the PowerShell Podcast (Ep. 164): https://powershellpodcast.podbean.com/e/from-proper-football-to-databases-with-jess-pomfret/
Jess's first appearance on the PowerShell Podcast: https://powershellpodcast.podbean.com/e/dbatools-with-jess-pomfret/
Join the PDQ Discord: https://discord.gg/pdq
The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/M2XvvCKs1Ls
43 min
May 04From ISE Anxiety to VS Code Every Day with Paula Kingsley
Paula Kingsley, a senior IT leader, longtime consultant, automation and PowerShell enthusiast, eight-time Microsoft MVP for Exchange Server, and happy generalist, joins Andrew for a wide-ranging conversation about her tech journey and what it actually looks like to grow from deep hands-on work into technology leadership. They kick things off with a topic near and dear to a lot of PowerShell folks: the ISE-to-VS Code migration. Paula was terrified of it, put it off for as long as she could, and now uses VS Code every single day.

From there, the conversation opens up into what consulting taught her about solving problems, how being a generalist can be a genuine advantage, why documentation and communication matter as much as technical skill, and what it means to keep the human side of technology alive as you move up. Paula also drops some solid practical PowerShell wisdom along the way, from always including WhatIf support in your functions to the very important reminder that Get is safe and Set is something else entirely.

Key Takeaways:
Making the jump from ISE to VS Code feels daunting, but the move is absolutely worth it. The secret is forcing yourself to open it first and just leaving it open until the habit takes hold.
Being a generalist isn't a weakness. The ability to see across systems, communicate up and down, and translate technical work into business outcomes is a real and undervalued skill.
Always build yourself an escape route. WhatIf and ShouldProcess aren't just best practices, they're the difference between a confident deployment and a very bad afternoon.
Guest Bio:
Paula Kingsley is an outcome-driven senior IT leader, technology operations and engineering expert, eight-time Microsoft MVP for Exchange Server, and self-described happy generalist. Her path into tech started with a liberal arts degree and eventually led through boutique IT consulting, enterprise infrastructure, global production operations, automation, cloud, AI, and a deep appreciation for PowerShell. Paula has built her career around solving problems, simplifying workflows, removing friction, and helping technical teams work better at scale. She is senior enough to shape strategy and steer practices, still hands-on enough to fix things herself, and yes, she even likes regex. You can find her on GitHub as lanwench and on LinkedIn.

Resource Links:
Paula Kingsley on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulakingsley/
Paula Kingsley on GitHub – https://github.com/lanwench
Connect with Andrew – https://andrewpla.tech/links/
PDQ Discord – https://discord.gg/pdq
The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/WLNVCW7S8BE
1 hr 14 min
April 29 PowerShell & DevOps Global Summit Bar session with Josh & Jeff
This episode of the PowerShell Podcast After Dark captures two candid bar-session conversations from the PowerShell and DevOps Global Summit, centered on community, career growth, and the real-world value of putting yourself out there. In the first segment, Josh Dearing talks about attending his first Summit, building PowerShell modules, learning from failure, and using automation to improve systems and processes in higher education.

In the second, Jeff Wardlaw reflects on finally attending the event in person, the impact of meeting the people behind the tools and community, and the broader lessons around perspective, technical leadership, communication, and problem-solving. Across both conversations, the theme is clear, PowerShell is not just a toolset, it is a way into a generous technical community where curiosity, experimentation, and shared learning can meaningfully shape a career.
The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/NyT_A1hSH_M

52 min
April 27 From Event Logs to AI Workflows with Lucas Allman
Lucas Allman joins the PowerShell Podcast for a conversation that starts with practical beginner wins and builds into bigger questions about AI, learning, community, and career growth in IT. The episode covers hands-on PowerShell use cases like event logs, scheduled tasks, and writing functions directly in the terminal, then shifts into Lucas’s experience as a first-time PowerShell Summit speaker and his evolving perspective on AI as a tool for both productivity and learning. It lands on a strong human note, with Lucas reflecting on impostor syndrome, keeping up with change, and why curiosity and community still matter just as much as technical skill.
Key Takeaways:
· Event logs are a great early PowerShell win. Lucas walks through using Get-WinEvent to explore logs, filter for errors, search messages, and troubleshoot faster without waiting on the Event Viewer GUI. He also shares a practical tip for reusing XML or XPath filters from Event Viewer inside PowerShell scripts.
· You can do more from the terminal than most people realize. Lucas explains how he writes full functions directly in the interactive shell, then saves them with a custom helper function so good code does not disappear when the session closes. It is a simple idea, but it opens the door to faster experimentation and building tools in the flow of work.
· AI is changing how technical people work, but not eliminating the need for judgment. A big part of the Summit discussion centered on using AI as a collaborator, not a replacement. Lucas argues that the real opportunity is to offload repetitive work, learn faster, and free up more time for higher-value problem solving, while still applying technical knowledge and critical thinking to the results.
Guest Bio:
Lucas Allman is an IT automation specialist with a passion for building practical, scalable solutions using PowerShell. With deep experience in endpoint management, configuration as code, and Microsoft cloud services like Intune and Graph API, Lucas focuses on making complex workflows maintainable, secure, and efficient. He’s an advocate for knowledge sharing and enjoys helping others level up their scripting and automation skills through real-world examples and interactive problem-solving. He had ChatGPT write this bio and says it’s close enough.
Resource Links:
· Lucas Allman website: https://lucasallman.com
· Connect with Andrew: https://andrewpla.tech/links
· PDQ Discord: https://discord.gg/PDQ
· PowerShell.org GitHub organization: https://github.com/powershellorg
The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/kcjkCS0QN64

1 hr 2 min
April 23 PowerShell & DevOps Global Summit Bar session with Brian Quinn & Scott
At the PowerShell and DevOps Global Summit, this after-dark bar session blends casual conversation with a real sense of why the event matters. Brian Quinn talks about returning for his second Summit, filling in PowerShell fundamentals, and bringing back practical skills like remoting, advanced functions, modules, testing, and version control to improve how his team handles identity and access management.
Scott Lemonde reflects on what keeps drawing him back, not just the technical knowledge, but the community, the friendships, and the way Summit gives people confidence, perspective, and momentum in their careers. Across both conversations, the theme is clear: PowerShell is not just a tool, it is a shared journey of growth, automation, problem-solving, and finding your people in a field that can otherwise feel pretty isolating.
See the PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/akrQSKoKjDI

38 min
April 20 The PowerShell Summit Hallway Track with Gilbert Sanchez and Joshua Dearing
This episode captures the energy of PowerShell Summit through two conversations, one with Gilbert Sanchez and one with Joshua Dearing. The discussion moves from open source maintenance and the future of PowerShell in AI workflows to the human side of technical communities, including burnout, neurodiversity, mentorship, and the value of showing up in person. It also highlights how PowerShell can change careers over time, not just by teaching syntax, but by opening doors to better communication, stronger community ties, and bigger technical thinking.

Key Takeaways:
· Community is often the unlock, not just the tooling. Both conversations reinforce that Summit’s real value is the people, the hallway conversations, and the sense that learning gets easier when you have others around you who are willing to help.
· Sustainable technical growth matters more than short bursts of output. Gilbert talks about burnout, open source maintenance, and creating healthier ways to contribute, while Andrew connects that to ADHD, mental health, and building a career that can last.
· PowerShell is a starting point for much bigger opportunities. Joshua’s story, from community member to module author, reflects a broader theme in the episode that small steps, taken consistently, can completely reshape what kind of work you can do and who you can become in the field.

Guest Bio:
Gilbert Sanchez is a Staff Software Development Engineer at Tesla, specifically working on PowerShell. Formerly known as "Señor Systems Engineer" at Meta. A loud advocate for DEI, DevEx, DevOps, and TDD.

Resource Links:
· PSake: https://psake.dev
· Gilbert Sanchez links: https://links.gilbertsanchez.com
· Gilbert Sanchez blog: https://gilbertsanchez.com

Josh is a systems administrator with a philosophy degree and a helpdesk origin story. He's a speaker, open source contributor, creator of ModuleExplorer, and a PDQ Sysadmin Hall of Fame winner. He's a firm believer that the best script is the one you don't keep to yourself.

· Joshua Dearing's website: https://dearing.dev
The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/XJAbZgOVMF4

1 hr 1 min
April 13PowerShell Wisdom from 35 Years in the Trenches with Jeff Hicks
With PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit 2026 opening this Monday, April 13th, this episode brings back one of the most respected names in the PowerShell community: Jeff Hicks. Andrew sits down with Jeff to dig into what makes the Summit special, the organic community that grew from those earliest events, and what it actually feels like to watch people go from struggling beginners to confident PowerShell practitioners. They also get into the big question hanging over everyone in IT right now: what does AI actually mean for the future of PowerShell professionals? Jeff shares his take on the "squishy bits" of scripting that AI still can't replicate, why learning the core PowerShell paradigm matters more than ever, and how he personally uses AI as a collaborator rather than a shortcut. It's a conversation about community, craft, and what it means to actually know your tools.

Key Takeaways:
Learn the foundation first, tools second. Jeff's consistent message over decades of teaching: don't start with Azure commands or specific modules. Start with the PowerShell paradigm — objects, the pipeline, managing at scale — and the rest becomes much easier to pick up over time.
AI is a co-pilot, not a replacement. Jeff uses AI to get over specific technical hurdles, not to generate finished code. His concern isn't that AI will write bad scripts — it's that the next generation may skip the foundational learning that lets you recognize when AI gets it wrong.
The PowerShell community is genuinely welcoming, and showing up matters. Whether it's Summit, a local user group, or Discord, getting into rooms with other PowerShell people can be a career changer. The hallway conversations are half the value.

Guest Bio:
Jeff Hicks is a veteran IT professional with 35 years of experience, a long-time Microsoft MVP, and one of the most recognized voices in the PowerShell community. He's the author and co-author of several foundational PowerShell books, a Pluralsight course creator, and the publisher of the premium newsletter Behind the PowerShell Pipeline. He's been teaching and writing about PowerShell since the very beginning and continues to focus on the human side of scripting — the parts that go beyond syntax and into craft.

Resource Links:
Jeff Hicks' hub (links to everything): https://jdhitsolutions.github.io
Behind the PowerShell Pipeline (newsletter & book on Leanpub): https://leanpub.com/behind-the-pspipeline
Jeff's Pluralsight courses: https://app.pluralsight.com/profile/author/jeff-hicks
Connect with Andrew: https://andrewpla.tech/links
PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit 2026 (April 13-16, Bellevue, WA): https://www.powershellsummit.org
PDQ Discord (PowerShell scripting channel): https://discord.gg/pdq
PowerShell Wednesday (weekly on PDQ's YouTube/Discord): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vdfFswmREQ&list=PL1mL90yFExsix-L0havb8SbZXoYRPol0B&pp=0gcJCbcEOCosWNin
The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ceB-3QGbvBA
46 min
April 06Intune Stack and the Art of Showing Up with Hailey Phillips
Andrew welcomes back Dual MVP and Intune aficionado Hailey Phillips for a wide-ranging conversation covering her project IntuneStack, the value of DevOps principles in endpoint management, and the mindset behind consistent skill-building. The two dig into conference culture, the importance of community, mentorship, and why showing up every day — even for just ten minutes — matters more than waiting for inspiration to strike.

Key Takeaways:
IntuneStack in action: Hailey's CI/CD-influenced PowerShell project manages Intune policy deployment across dev, test, and prod groups using promotion gates rather than expensive separate tenants — a more resilient, consistent, and auditable approach to endpoint management.
Consistency over inspiration: Whether it's PowerShell, the gym, or mentoring, Hailey's philosophy is the same: stop waiting to feel motivated and just start small. Ten minutes a day compounds over time, and momentum is something you build, not something you wait for.
Community is a career asset: Conferences like PowerShell Summit and PSConfEU aren't just about the sessions — they're about building a support system. Having people who can sanity-check your thinking is one of the most underrated advantages in a tech career.
Guest Bio:
Hailey Phillips is a Systems Engineer, Microsoft MVP, and Professional Pokémon Trainer. She specializes in automation, endpoint management, and modern workplace strategy, bridging the gap between traditional IT and DevOps. Hailey’s work focuses on building pragmatic, scalable solutions using tools like PowerShell, Microsoft Graph, Intune, and Azure Arc. When she’s not deep in tech, you’ll probably find her skiing in the Cascades, lifting heavy things, or at a metalcore show with a strong cup of coffee in hand.

Resource Links:
Intune Stack on GitHub - https://github.com/AllwaysHyPe/IntuneStack
Practical Automation with PowerShell by Matthew Dost - https://www.manning.com/books/practical-automation-with-powershell
GliderUI Cross-platform GUIs - https://github.com/mdgrs-mei/GliderUI
PDQ Discord - https://discord.gg/pdq
Hailey Phillips Website - https://www.allwayshype.com/
Connect with Andrew - https://andrewpla.tech/links
The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/L97ePN7UtGY
57 min
March 30Poking Around Until Something Breaks (And Then Reporting It to Microsoft) with Morten Mynster
Andrew welcomes back Morten Mynster for a follow-up conversation that's essentially a highlight reel of one Morten's public journey over the past year. Morten shares updates on three PowerShell modules he's released, including his standout LeastPrivilegedMSGraph module, and walks through a security issue he discovered and responsibly reported to Microsoft. Along the way, Andrew and Morten reflect on how putting your work out publicly can lead to unexpected career wins, how AI is reshaping the way people learn and write code, and why getting hands-on is still the best way to actually understand anything. Morten is also two weeks into a new job as a cybersecurity consultant, which came directly from his open-source work.

Key Takeaways:
Publishing your work publicly, even to a small audience, creates opportunities that a resume never could. Morten landed a job offer without ever applying, simply because someone found his module on LinkedIn.
The best way to learn something technical is still to get hands-on with it. Reading about it is rarely enough, whether that's PowerShell, APIs, or anything else in IT.
AI is a powerful accelerator, but over-relying on it without a foundational understanding means you won't be able to fix things when they break, and you risk introducing security vulnerabilities you don't even recognize.

Guest Bio:

Morten Mynster is a cybersecurity consultant and an active member of the PowerShell and security community. Over the past year, he's published three PowerShell modules focused on Microsoft Graph permissions and actionable messages in Outlook, discovered and reported a security vulnerability to Microsoft, and begun public speaking. He blogs at mynster9361.github.io and is active on LinkedIn and Discord.

Resource Links:
Andrew's Links: https://andrewpla.tech/links
PDQ Discord: discord.gg/PDQ
Morten's Blog: mynster9361.github.io
Morten on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mortenmynster/
Least Privileged MS Graph Module (GitHub): github.com/Mynster9361/Least_Privileged_MSGraph
Actionable Messages Module (GitHub): github.com/Mynster9361/ActionableMessages
Actionable Messages Module blog post: mynster9361.github.io/posts/ActionableMessagesModule
PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit: powershellsummit.org
PowerShell Conference Europe (PSConfEU): psconf.eu
The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/VIEbain7IIg
56 min

About The PowerShell Podcast

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The PowerShell Podcast is a weekly show about building your career with PowerShell. Each episode features the tips, tech, and modules that make PowerShell the premier automation and scripting tool for…