About Marian Kamenistak — mentor to engineering leaders

Portfolio

How I've helped 300+ leaders.

One network, one goal. Whether you need a mentor, a room full of peers, or your next senior hire.

1:1 mentoring
Promoted, hired, or the fire out, with solid ground under your feet by session 4. 3,400+ sessions since 2019.
Pick your role →
Community
Your 11pm "my VPE just quit" fire, answered by someone who has survived the same one. 2,000+ ELC leaders, CEE-native.
Join ELC →
Meetups
Leaders walk out with their next hire, their next mentor, or the answer to this quarter’s fire. 120+ in the room, 12 times a year.
Register for the next one →
Conference
A year of contacts in one day: 500+ engineering leaders, speakers from Netflix and Stripe, Czech Television in the room.
See the conference →
Hiring
Senior hires in weeks, no recruiter fee. The community knows who is actually good long before the CV lands on your desk.
Browse the list →
Fractional CTO
No CTO in the seat? I take it when the fit is right, and the org you need gets built by someone who has built one.
How it works →
Leadership Academy
Your EMs lead in weeks, not years: they learn the job while doing the job, in a cohort inside your company. 86 NPS.
See the program →
Productivity audit
Roadmap slips stop in 3 months, or the money is on me. I find what breaks first, and what to touch to make it stop.
What I look at →
Speaking
The room leaves with a playbook, not platitudes. Keynotes from someone who ran the org. 50+ events a year.
Topics and clips →

Background

Been in the seat.

San Francisco Bay Area badge with the Golden Gate Bridge

You know the feeling. Every 1:1 opens with a new fire. You go home Friday with 40 tabs open in your head. I ran that shift for years. I know what breaks first, and what to touch to make it stop.

I built engineering through Mews Series C, growing R&D from 8 to 80+ dev teams. Engineering leadership at Manta, acquired by IBM. Databricks in the Bay Area before that. In 2023 I walked away from a $350k role to go all-in on mentoring and the Engineering Leaders Community. Full numbers here.

Today: 600+ mentoring sessions a year, 2,000+ ELC members across CEE, fractional CTO when the fit is right. Most engineering leadership content in your feed is recycled US thinking that ignores where you actually work. I translate.

Who this is for.

CTOs, VPs, and Directors at scale-ups with 50 to 500 engineers. EMs moving up. Founders who care how engineering feels, not just what it costs.

Who it's not for.

If you want a certificate, a framework poster, or somebody to agree with you, save your money. Mentoring first, no esoteric loops. And if you need an 80-slide strategy deck, hire a consultancy. I'm the opposite.

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