About this episode

Jake Hildreth discusses his experiences at PSConf EU, updates on the Stepper module, and the importance of taking time off.

Jake Hildreth, Principal Security Consultant at Semperis and Microsoft MVP, is back on the podcast fresh off a trip to PowerShell Conference Europe, where he and Andrew co-presented a session on securing PowerShell. Jake also gave his own talk on Stepper, his open-source module for building resumable, step-by-step scripts — a tool that's grown considerably since his last appearance on the show. The two dig into what makes PSConf EU such a standout event, the refreshing lack of elitism in the PowerShell community, and the updates Jake's been shipping, including named steps, built-in logging, and secret suppression. The conversation winds into burnout, the importance of actually taking your vacation days, and how the same mindset that drives good automation — knowing when to stop and reset — applies to taking care of yourself.Key Takeaways: Stepper has gotten some meaningful quality-of-life updates since Jake last appeared on the show, including named steps, automatic logging, and the ability to suppress secrets from logs — making it more practical for real-world production scripts. PSConf EU punches above its weight as a conference experience: technically deep but genuinely…

People in this episode

Host: Andrew

Guest: Jake Hildreth

Topics covered

• PowerShell
• PSConf EU
• Stepper updates
• work-life balance
• automation
• community

Keywords

• PowerShell
• PSConf EU
• Stepper
• automation
• vacation
• burnout
• community

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Semperis, Microsoft

Products: Stepper

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