Most organizations are excited about AI. Far fewer are actually ready for it. In this episode of The Pluralsight Podcast, host Josh Burkhead sits down with Faye Ellis — AWS Hero and Pluralsight Author Fellow, cloud architect turned educator, and AI upskilling strategist — to talk about what separates organizations that are stuck in AI curiosity mode from those that are building real, measurable capability.

Faye brings a practitioner's perspective to some of the most pressing questions in L&D and technology leadership today: How do you close skills gaps when the technology keeps moving? How do you bring non-technical teams along without losing them? And why are 80% of AI pilots still failing to reach production — even as investment in AI continues to climb?

Whether you're leading an L&D function, managing a technology team, or trying to figure out where to even start with AI upskilling, this conversation is packed with frameworks and honest perspectives you can take back to your team.

In this episode:

• Why fear is not an AI strategy — and what to do instead

• How to move from AI curiosity to a skills-first, outcome-driven program

• The case for AI literacy at every level of the organization, not just technical teams

• What a successful upskilling program actually looks like in practice

• Why the organizations getting it right treat learning as a continuous journey, not a project

Chapters:

00:01:08 — From Data Centers to AI: Faye's Career Journey

00:04:07 — What Got Her Hooked on Teaching

00:05:41 — The AI Curiosity Trap: Why Organizations Stay Stuck

00:09:21 — What It Looks Like When Strategy Clicks

00:12:53 — Running a Skills Gap Analysis in a Moving Target Environment

00:15:13 — Including Non-Technical Teams in the Talent Pipeline

00:18:31 — Building a Program That Actually Works

00:21:07 — Connecting Learning to Business Outcomes

00:26:13 — Designing for Confidence, Not Just Competence

00:31:22 — Scaling a Learning Culture Without Letting It Fizzle

00:37:00 — Trust as the Hidden Driver of Upskilling Success

00:41:02 — What Leaders Are Still Getting Wrong About AI Literacy

00:44:20 — Rapid Fire: Myths, Hard Truths, and One Thing in Common

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Follow Pluralsight on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pluralsight/

Connect with Faye Ellis on LinkedIn: https://plrsg.ht/420lS3W

Questions or comments? podcast@pluralsight.com

www.pluralsight.com

What does it take to write code that's actually ready for an AI-powered world — and what happens when it isn't?

In this episode of The Pluralsight Podcast, Maaike Van Putten — software developer, Pluralsight author, and instructor known for making technical concepts genuinely approachable — makes the case that clean code has never mattered more than it does right now. Not because the standard has changed, but because AI can generate bad code faster than ever before, and someone has to catch it.

Maaike traces that argument back to a practical reality: as AI takes on more of the writing, the job of the developer increasingly becomes the job of the reviewer. From there, she breaks down why functions that do too many things are the silent killer of maintainable codebases, what the "driving fast" analogy reveals about the relationship between speed and code quality, and why AI should be treated as a teammate — not an authority — before you let it anywhere near data you can't afford to lose.

We also get into why the entry bar for junior developers has shifted dramatically, how a brag document can be a genuine defense against imposter syndrome, and what scheduling "tech dates" actually looks like when you're trying to protect learning time in a world that never stops demanding more of it.

If you're early in your development career, leading a team of developers, or just trying to figure out how to work alongside AI without letting it work against you — this conversation is a grounded, practical look at the habits and mindsets that hold up across every wave of change.

Chapters:

03:12 Why the Entry-Level Developer Market Is Struggling Right Now

05:51 Clean Code: Why Small Habits Make or Break a Developer

08:40 Why Code Quality Matters More in the AI Era

10:21 What Happens When a Team Isn't Aligned on Standards

11:16 AI as a Teammate, Not an Authority: Lessons from a Hard Drive Wipe

13:09 What Leaders Should Consider Before Deploying AI in Development

14:15 Vibe Coding vs. Agentic Coding: Is There a Difference?

14:34 Why Reading Code Is Now More Valuable Than Writing It

16:20 How to Schedule and Protect Learning Time (Tech Dates)

18:33 How to Ask Your Manager for Learning Time

19:30 Beating Information Overload: Focus on Fundamentals

21:47 The Brag Document: Fighting Imposter Syndrome with Evidence

24:51 How to Share Your Work Without Feeling Exposed

26:35 What Motivated Maaike to Start Teaching and Creating Content

27:58 Skills Young Developers Are Overlooking Right Now

30:03 Maaike's 2026 Goals & Upcoming Book: *Illustrated Python*

📖 Illustrated Python by Maaike Van Putten — available now on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0dSvCYrR

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Follow Pluralsight on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pluralsight/

Connect with Maaike Van Putten on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maaikevanputten/

Questions or comments? podcast@pluralsight.com

www.pluralsight.com

What if the reason your AI adoption isn't working has nothing to do with the technology — and everything to do with how you prepared your people?

In this episode of The Pluralsight Podcast, Jose Ramirez — L&D strategist and former research analyst who spent a decade advising CIOs on building high-performing tech teams — makes the case that most organizations are solving the wrong problem. It's not a tools problem. It's a skills problem. And until leaders make learning part of the job instead of a break from it, no amount of AI investment will move the needle.

Jose traces that argument back to a simple but powerful reframe: the difference between building AI tool adopters and building AI value creators. From there, he breaks down why a skills-first approach makes teams more resilient than role-based hiring, how the best tech leaders use storytelling to win over skeptical stakeholders, and why handing employees a new AI tool without context or strategy is one of the most expensive mistakes a leader can make right now.

We also get into how to measure the real impact of upskilling beyond completion rates, why career mobility is the most overlooked metric in any L&D program, and what it looks like when a learning culture is actually working.

If you lead technology teams, learning programs, or both — this conversation is a practical and honest look at what it takes to close the skills gap before it's too late.

Want more insights on Security, Cloud, and AI? Subscribe to our newsletters: https://plrsg.ht/3MZ78ya

Connect with Jose Ramirez on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseramirez5/

Questions or comments? Email → podcast@pluralsight.com

Website → https://plrsg.ht/4rlhB5m

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