The Forward Slash Podcast

How do you grow your engineering career without chasing titles?  This week, we have a two-parter! Matthew McDole joins James Carman to break down platform engineering, build vs. buy decisions, and why working on the right problems matters more than promotions.

How do you keep your workforce competitive when the skills they built two years ago are already expiring?  Ben Tasker leads an AI academy upskilling 36,000 employees in the public utility sector. This week, he joins us to unpack why 95% of organizations are getting AI adoption wrong — and why the problem is almost never the technology. They explore what skills-based workforce design actually looks...

As enterprise AI adoption accelerates, how do you move fast without introducing new security and compliance risk?  Cordell Robinson, CEO of Brownstone Consulting Firm, joins James to explore why AI governance and cybersecurity can’t be an afterthought. They break down the risks behind shadow AI, data leakage, and weak vendor oversight — and why organizations that build governance early will be bet...

What happens when AI becomes better than the average designer?  This week, Hikari Senju, founder and CEO of Omneky, joins James to explore how generative AI is transforming advertising from an art form into a measurable, automated system. They unpack how AI is redesigning enterprise workflows, why advertising may replace large portions of traditional sales, and what it means when attention itself...

As AI accelerates software development, how do you keep complexity from accelerating with it?  This week, Mike Spiegel of SpotOn joins us to examine how platform engineering must evolve in an AI-driven development era. As code velocity increases, testing discipline, reliability, and governance become even more critical. They explore how internal developer platforms create organizational clarity, w...

Why do so many well-funded products still struggle with adoption? Mark Brehaut, Head of Design at Clair, joins us to unpack how design directly impacts activation, retention, and business performance — especially in high-stakes industries like FinTech. From onboarding friction and time-to-value to validating assumptions before they hit production, Mark explains how human-centered design moves beyo...

If AI is already embedded in your teams’ workflows, are you leading it — or reacting to it?  This week, Holly Laiveling, CTO at FEG Investment Advisors, shares what enterprise AI adoption really looks like inside complex, regulated environments. As generative AI moves from experiment to everyday tool, we break down how technology leaders can shift from gatekeeper to enabler through practical AI go...

If AI is the future of infrastructure, why does production still feel experimental? Joel Vasallo, Senior Director of Platform Engineering at TAG (The Aspen Group), joins us to explore what AI adoption actually looks like inside real production environments. From agent gateways and MCP servers to AI-assisted monitoring, we discuss the operational tradeoffs, why many pilots never scale, and what it...

What happens when AI adoption becomes a leadership challenge, instead of a technology change? This week, James sits down with Nikki Barua, CEO and co-founder of Flipwork, to explore why AI progress often stalls even after real investment. They unpack the growing gap between executive expectations and team readiness, why traditional change management no longer works, and how leaders can rethink ide...

When everything feels urgent, how do you make progress instead of just reacting? In this episode, we talk with Erkang Zheng, founder of JupiterOne and Ariso, about why so many leaders get stuck in reactive mode and what it takes to build systems that hold up under pressure. They explore proactive leadership, lessons from scaling companies, and how AI and better structure can help teams move from c...

If AI is so powerful, why hasn’t it changed your organization the way you expected? In this episode, James sits down with strategy advisor Justin Trombold to unpack why GenAI progress feels slower than promised and why the biggest barriers usually aren’t technical. They explore what organizational readiness really means, how small workflow wins create momentum, when agentic automation is worth the...

Why do AI analytics tools look impressive… but still don’t get used? James Carman talks with Pete Hunt, CEO of Dagster Labs and one of the original engineers behind React, about what it really takes for AI-powered analytics to stick. They unpack why adoption is often the biggest challenge (not accuracy), how bringing analytics into Slack changes decision-making, and what “fast, directionally corre...

If AI can build a prototype in a day, why does shipping still take months? In this episode, James Carman is joined by David Arenas, a senior technology leader across industrial automation, fintech, and global data platforms. Together, they unpack why AI is accelerating development, but also making the gap between demo and production more expensive. They break down what it takes to ship AI-built wo...

What did we actually learn about AI this year? To close out 2025, James interviews an unexpected guest: ChatGPT . They talk honestly about what teams got wrong, what actually improved, and why AI’s biggest wins came from small workflow shifts — not sweeping transformation. They also dig into software engineering, documentation, onboarding, junior engineers, and what tech leaders will need to opera...

What if the systems we rely on every day fail because they were never designed for how work actually happens? This week, we sit down with product design leader and founder Sharmeen Aqeel to explore how human-centered design and AI are reshaping how products get built, decisions get made, and businesses move forward. Sharmeen shares how deep user research exposes where traditional processes break d...

What happens when shipping software is no longer limited by human hours? This week, Max Heckel — CTO of Ariso and creator of the open-source AI orchestrator “Ivan” — breaks down how his team literally codes while they sleep. Max shares how AI coding agents can tackle tasks overnight, open PRs by morning, double development velocity, and redefine what engineering teams focus on. This conversation i...

What if the real key to transformation isn’t more technology, but more humanity ? This week, Nora Osman joins James to explore why simplicity, trust, and human experience are the real engines of organizational change. From zero-to-hero moments to the “red carpet in, red carpet out” philosophy, Nora shows how better leadership—not bigger tech stacks—drives lasting results.

Can your AI agents survive production AND your budget? In this episode, Yaron Schneider, CTO and co-founder of Diagrid and creator of the foundational open-source tools Dapr and KEDA, joins James to unpack what it takes to build AI agents that are durable, cost-aware and enterprise-ready.

In this episode of The Forward Slash , James talks with Michael Pompey, AI Evangelist at Arrow Electronics, about the messy middle between innovation and impact. They discuss lessons from mission-driven organizations, the danger of chasing hype, and why the next evolution of transformation will be adaptive, not architectural. From AI to governance to leadership trust, this conversation is a candid...

What if your transformation plan is the thing holding you back? This week, James welcomes Carol Houle, CEO of Inspire Digital Consulting, to dive into the mindset shift from rigid planning to adaptive execution. They explore how to connect OKRs to customer value, replace feature wish lists with measurable outcomes, and finally move from building more to building what matters.

Has AI finally met its moment of truth? This week, James sits down with Jim Spignardo, Director of Cloud Strategy & AI Enablement at ProArch, to explore how enterprises are moving from curiosity to competence with AI. They talk data, security, productivity, and the shift from “let’s try AI” to “let’s solve real problems with it.”

What if AI could hear what doctors can’t? This week James welcomes, Dr. Morris Nguyen , founder and CEO of Predicate , to explore how AI is transforming healthcare by combining patient voice and vital signs to detect critical illness early. Morris shares his journey from critical care physician to tech founder , what it takes to bridge medicine and machine learning , and why empathy may be AI’s mo...

Is platform engineering the missing link in real AI adoption? This week, we welcome Matan Grady, lead AI PM at Port, to unpack why platform engineering is the control plane for AI adoption. We cover the move from chat UIs to agentic workflows, what it takes to trust AI in production (secrets, permissions, guardrails, human-in-the-loop), and how MCP servers connect agents to calendars, docs, and co...

Is AI making product design smarter—or just noisier? This week, James talks with Erica Price, product experience leader, about how AI is reshaping UX, product design, and job dynamics. From ADHD hyper-focus as a superpower to the limits of chat interfaces, Erica shares practical insights on using AI as a tool—not a replacement—in the future of design.

What does it really take to run AI at scale? In this episode, cloud architect James McShane joins James to explore how Kubernetes became the backbone of modern tech, why the cloud isn’t always the cheapest answer, and what most people miss about keeping AI systems healthy after launch. From GPU scarcity to “vibe coding” gone wrong, this conversation pulls back the curtain on the choices shaping th...