For our first PICNIC episode of 2018, we welcome our friend and returning guest Adam Bertam, Chief Automator at Adam the Automator LLC.

Adam Bertram is an automation engineer, blogger, independent consultant, freelance writer, author, trainer, and presenter. Adam focuses on DevOps, system management, and automation technologies as well as various cloud platforms. He is a Microsoft Cloud and Datacenter Management MVP, a passionate learner and efficiency nerd that enjoys teaching others a better way to leverage automation. You can find Adam at his adamtheautomator.com blog, LinkedIn or on Twitter at @adbertram.

Ever since the introduction of the Infrastructure in the Cloud and DevOps over the past decade, IT professionals have seen a giant pivot in the skill sets that are needed to get the job done. Hardware maintenance and repair is only small part of the job now. Tape backups are being replaced by cloud backups, servers are becoming virtualized, and system administration is being automated to save time. With all that said, that means coding and scripting is coming to the forefront of everything that IT people do. Today we are going to talk about the changes going on in the IT world and if you are an IT professional, why you need to learn how to code.

Questions we will cover with Adam today:

• As a PowerShell guru, you’ve certainly have been ahead of the game when it comes to scripting and automation in IT. I bet we can’t say the same for many other small and medium businesses. Why do IT pros need to learn to code?
• So, we are trending in the direction that many of IT’s tasks need to be automated. Do you think there is a shortage of IT pros who have coding skills in the workforce because of this? How does one get started if they have been focused on hardware their whole career, for instance?
• What if you hate coding and scripting and you work in IT? Is it time to start looking for another career path?
• I know you are biased towards PowerShell., but if I’m an IT person looking to learn a new language, which language would you recommend and why?
• Coding has always been tied to being a programmer. Are you saying that all IT pros need to be programmers? That seems like it would be a big leap for a lot of people in this line of work.
• Could you share some resources that have helped you keep your scripting skills fresh? Any recommendations for the uninitiated?