Marian Kamenistak · For companies
Engineering leadership program: 1:1 mentoring for your engineering managers, paid by the company
Your company sponsors mentoring for three or more engineering managers and tech leads. Each of them gets Marian Kamenistak, former VP of Engineering at Mews, for six 1:1 sessions a quarter. No cohort, no slides, no program manager on your side. One invoice.
And you get a sentence you can put in a job ad the same week: our engineering managers get 1:1 mentoring with an operator who has run the job.
3,662 sessions since 2019. Mentees score every session 0 to 10; the average is 9.17.
The job your EMs learn by breaking things
A 200 to 1,000-person software company promotes its best engineers into management and then leaves them alone with it. The errors run on your payroll: a senior who resigns after six months of bad 1:1s, an underperformer carried for two quarters, a reorg nobody wanted to decide. Replacing one senior engineer costs 40 to 60k EUR in recruiter fees, ramp-up and lost delivery. A quarter of mentoring for that EM costs €1,975.
Internal mentoring usually ends where the senior colleague's time ends. A course teaches the average case. This program puts each of your leaders in a room with someone who grew engineering at Mews from 8 to 80 teams through Series C, has mentored 317 leaders since 2019, and will tell them what worked and what didn't on their exact problem.
Who you sponsor
The engineering manager in year one
Promoted from the team they now run. Learning 1:1s, feedback and the first hard people call on a live team, and few people around who have done it before.
The tech lead about to take a team
Strong engineer, no management training, a team waiting. The first quarter decides whether they stay in the role or quietly go back to the keyboard.
The EM who now leads managers
Two or three teams, a director title on the way, and a job that stopped being about code. Delivery, hiring, the reorg they keep postponing.
Directors and VPs fit too; the work changes, the format doesn't. The role pages describe what a quarter looks like for an engineering manager, an engineering director or a staff engineer taking the leadership step.
How it runs
You name the leaders
3 or more. Most companies start with the newest engineering managers and the tech leads about to take a team. The leaders can put their own hand up too.
One intro call, 30 minutes, free
With you as the sponsor. We agree who is in, what each leader should be able to do by the end of the quarter, and the free sessions on top of the packs.
Six sessions per leader, one quarter
60 minutes every two weeks, video by default, in person in Prague when it fits. Each leader sends their context before session one, so the first hour starts on the real problem.
A checkpoint at session 3, a review at session 6
You see themes, not transcripts: what your leaders struggle with, which risks repeat across teams, what to fix at org level. What a leader says in the room stays in the room.
Pricing
The rate is public and it's the same whether a leader pays or the company does: €395 a session, €1,975 for a quarter of six. Sponsoring three or more leaders is where the company gets something an individual can't: free sessions on top of the packs, up to 8. The bigger version, with onsite days and a shared calendar, is Mentor in Residence.
- ★ Start here
3 leaders, one quarter
from €5,925
per quarter. 3 × €1,975, 6 sessions per leader.
- Each leader gets 6 sessions over 3 months, 5 paid + 1 free, at the public €395 rate. The same rate a leader pays alone.
- Sponsoring 3 or more leaders adds free sessions on top: 2, then 4, then up to 8 as the bench grows. I confirm the number on the intro call.
- The rate never moves. The concession is sessions, not a discount, and the charged floor is €296 a session.
- A session your leader rates under 7/10 isn't charged.
- One invoice with your PO number. Add leaders any quarter.
Mentor in Residence
€10,332
per quarter. 18 sessions shared across your bench, one onsite day a month.
- For a bench of 5 or more leaders. Your people book my calendar directly; nobody has to be named in advance.
- 18 sessions at the same €395 rate, plus the onsite days, a quarterly readout for your exec team and a sponsor dashboard.
- Two onsite days a month: €20,664 per quarter, 36 sessions.
Prices in EUR without VAT, invoiced by Marian Kamenistak, sole trader, against your PO. Any session a leader rates under 7/10 is not charged. ELC members get 10% off every package, and so does an inquiry built through the AI door below.
Need the case for your CFO? The business case page has the formula, three worked examples and a one-pager builder. One prevented resignation pays for the program several times over.
What you can tell candidates
"Our engineering managers get 1:1 mentoring with Marian Kamenistak, former VP of Engineering at Mews and founder of the 3,300+-member Engineering Leaders Community."
That sentence is true from the first session, and you can use it in a job ad, in an interview, in an offer letter. Engineers who've had a bad manager read it as a promise about who they'll report to. Engineers who want to become managers read it as a path.
What I don't do: badges, logos on your careers page, a quote written for you. What you do get is the fact itself, and a mentor whose name engineers in Prague, Brno, Bratislava and Kraków have seen on a stage: 12 ELC meetups a year and a conference with 350+ engineering leaders in the room. Whether an individual leader's own name goes public is their decision, never the sponsor's.
Leaders from these companies have worked with me
Ataccama, Rohlik and Košík have paid for mentoring for several of their engineering leaders. Engineering managers at Mews and Pure Storage have been through a quarter and wrote it down.
"He helped me to avoid many initial mistakes and gave a lot of useful advice for the future."
"Marian has taught me to look beyond daily tasks and set long-term goals."
"There is no other mentor like Marian. Each session was inspiring and full of practical recommendations."
More on the testimonials page, with names, roles and companies.
Why me
I've held the seat your EMs are growing into. VP of Engineering at Mews, the $2bn+ hotel-tech unicorn from Prague, where R&D went from 8 to 80 teams through Series C while the roadmap kept shipping. Three years in the Bay Area as a Principal Software Architect at Databricks before that. Advisor to Manta, acquired by IBM.
Since 2019 I've run 3,662 1:1 leadership sessions with 317 leaders from 17+ countries. Mentees score every session from 0 to 10; the average is 9.17, and a session under 7 isn't charged. I founded the Engineering Leaders Community, 3,300+ members across Central Europe, which is where many of your candidates already know the name from.
The longer version, and the practice statistics the numbers come from.
For companies
Build the inquiry with my AI, in 10 minutes.
The wizard asks what a good first session would ask, then sends a formal itemized offer and the brief your leaders' first session starts from. Companies sponsoring 3 or more leaders unlock free sessions on top, which I confirm on the call. The 10% AI-channel price applies to Mentor in Residence too: €9,299 a quarter instead of €10,332.
Frequently asked
How much does a company-paid mentoring program for engineering managers cost?+
Is this a training course or a cohort?+
What does the company see?+
Can we sponsor one or two leaders instead of three?+
Can we say this in our job ads and interviews?+
How is it invoiced?+
Where do the leaders need to be?+
Start with three leaders and one quarter
One 30-minute call with you as the sponsor, one PO, and your leaders book their first session straight into my calendar. At the end of the quarter you renew, add leaders, or stop.
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