--- title: "Life and Wellness Coaching for Engineering Leaders" description: "1:1 wellbeing coaching for engineering leaders. Burnout recovery without quitting, imposter syndrome, lost meaning, isolation at the top." url: "https://www.marian.coach/life-and-wellness/" lang: "en" image: "https://www.marian.coach/_astro/mentoring-06.CFmbsSxo_Z1Fn9BA.jpg" --- Marian Kamenistak · Engineering leaders carrying the human load of the job # Life and Wellness for Engineering Leaders. For the part of the job that never reaches the org chart. ![Wide shot of a mentor and an engineer in a 1:1 at a round table, the engineer listening with his hand on his chin.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/mentoring-06.CFmbsSxo_MDaN8.webp) Burnout you can't afford to quit for. A laptop that follows you to dinner. An imposter voice that didn't leave when the title arrived. The week you hit every goal and felt nothing. Being the most senior person in the building with nobody to say any of it to. A good share of my 3,662 sessions since 2019 open here rather than with the roadmap. I walked away from a $350k role in 2023 and carried the debt and the doubt that came after it, so an empty tank isn't a theoretical problem to me. [Book the intro →](https://www.marian.coach/meet) **9.17/10** average session rating since 2024. ## Five situations that bring leaders to this track Composites, not case studies. Real patterns and real numbers, invented people. What gets said in a session stays in the session, so nobody described here is one identifiable person. ![Two engineering leaders in a 1:1 conversation at a community mentoring table, one explaining while the other listens.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/mentoring-01.BaBhsinu_Z1Ehb3c.webp) ### Sixty percent capacity, one hundred percent calendar You're running at about 60% and your calendar still assumes 100%. Three months off would cost you the mortgage, so that option isn't real and everyone who suggests it has misunderstood the problem. The job isn't the enemy. The way you're currently doing it is, and you know that, and knowing it hasn't changed anything past a Wednesday in about four months. Most burnout writing is aimed at people who can leave. Yours has to work while you keep shipping, which rules out most of it, and that's why the articles keep failing you rather than because you lack discipline. What I've watched restore capacity isn't rest. Rest helps and it isn't the mechanism. It's reducing the number of open loops you personally hold. Twelve unfinished things that only you own will drain you faster than sixty hours of work you can put down when you close the laptop. Most leaders I sit with are carrying somewhere between fifteen and thirty and have never counted. So we count them, on paper, in session one. Then every week one loop gets closed, handed to someone, or explicitly killed. Killed is a legitimate outcome and almost nobody uses it. We also write down in advance what your own evidence of recovery will be, because otherwise you'll move the line and never notice you got better. By week 8 the count is meaningfully lower and you tend to feel the difference before the calendar looks any different. That order surprises people, and it's the part I'd ask you to trust. Related reads - [Sustainable leadership pace](https://www.marian.coach/blog/how-to-excel-in-engineering-management/) - [Communities as a burnout buffer](https://www.marian.coach/blog/community-of-practice-for-engineering-managers/) - [What I learned from my own burnout](https://www.marian.coach/blog/from-vpe-to-solo-mentoring-year-one/) ![An engineering leader talking with a mentee across a small table at a community mentoring session.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/mentoring-02.BQRj2gmR_10nbng.webp) ### Everyone tells you to set boundaries as if it were a switch You answer at 11pm because not answering makes tomorrow worse. That isn't weakness, it's an accurate read of your organisation. Your partner has stopped asking when you'll be done. You haven't been properly present at a weekend since spring. So I won't tell you to set boundaries. Boundaries fail when the org is genuinely built to need you late, and willpower loses that fight every time it's tried. We go after the supply instead. There are usually two or three specific mechanisms generating those pings: a decision nobody else is permitted to make, an escalation path with your name hard-coded into it, a timezone you agreed to once and never revisited. Named, each of them is fixable, and the fix is almost always handing someone authority rather than you becoming more disciplined. Six weeks: one full weekend off the machine, one evening a week back, and a workday that ends because the org can survive it ending. Related reads - [Leading without living at the desk](https://www.marian.coach/blog/how-to-excel-in-engineering-management/) - [Peers who model a sane pace](https://www.marian.coach/blog/community-of-practice-for-engineering-managers/) - [The reset I had to make myself](https://www.marian.coach/blog/from-vpe-to-solo-mentoring-year-one/) ![Two engineering leaders in armchairs facing each other in a 1:1 at a community mentoring table.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/mentoring-03.80EmKxtE_WBn5T.webp) ### Imposter syndrome in a job you demonstrably earned You got the promotion, the title, the seat. Every Monday some part of you expects to be found out. Six months in it hasn't faded, you can't say it to anyone inside the company, your partner has heard it enough, and your therapist doesn't know what a monorepo is. Two different things wear the same costume here and they want opposite handling. One is a real skill gap: you've genuinely never reported to a board before, or never run a layoff, and the discomfort is information. The other is a background process that keeps running regardless of evidence, and no achievement switches it off, which you can verify cheaply, because you already have the achievements and it's still on. We separate them early, usually by looking hard at what specifically you're afraid someone will discover. The real gaps then get closed one a month, deliberately. The background process gets managed rather than cured, which is the honest framing and also the one that works. By month three there's one closed gap you can point at, and a written account of what you do know. That sounds like a homework exercise and turns out to be the thing people reread before hard meetings. I'll be straight about the rest: the voice usually gets quieter rather than leaving. Most senior people I know still hear it. They've stopped taking instructions from it. Related reads - [Excelling in leadership without breaking](https://www.marian.coach/blog/how-to-excel-in-engineering-management/) - [The senior-leader imposter loop](https://www.marian.coach/blog/from-vpe-to-solo-mentoring-year-one/) - [Communities that normalize the feeling](https://www.marian.coach/blog/community-of-practice-for-engineering-managers/) - [Self-learning as the imposter antidote](https://www.marian.coach/blog/great-people-are-active-in-self-learning/) ![An engineering leader speaking to a mentee during a 1:1 community mentoring session.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/mentoring-04.DW02JUAo_J9dPP.webp) ### You hit the target and felt nothing The title, the money, the seat you wanted for years. You keep waiting to feel like you arrived. Instead you feel like a well-paid project manager for other people's priorities, and the thing you're most afraid of is that the honest answer is you're done. Three quite different conditions get called this, and telling them apart is most of the work. Burnout, where the tank is empty and nothing registers as anything. A values mismatch, where the work is fine and you've stopped believing in what it's for. And plain boredom in a role you outgrew about a year ago, which is the most common of the three and the least dramatic. They have opposite fixes, which is why guessing is expensive. Rest resolves the first and does nothing at all for the third. Changing companies resolves the third and follows you across the road if it was the first. So we establish which one you have before we change anything, by mapping what genuinely energised you back when something did, then testing one change a month against that map. I went through the third one in 2023 and spent the best part of a year treating it as the first. That year is the reason I ask people to slow down at exactly this point. Related reads - [When I walked away from the title](https://www.marian.coach/blog/from-vpe-to-solo-mentoring-year-one/) - [What the top of the ladder felt like](https://www.marian.coach/blog/vp-of-engineering-mews-a-look-back-on-my-1st-year/) - [Staying alive by staying a learner](https://www.marian.coach/blog/learn-or-die/) - [The people who stay energized](https://www.marian.coach/blog/great-people-are-active-in-self-learning/) ![Wide shot of a 1:1 community mentoring session in an atrium, two people in armchairs at a round table.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/mentoring-05.BrINwYEC_ZmuMrk.webp) ### Nobody in the building can be your outlet You can't vent to your team, you lead them. You can't vent to your CEO, you report to them. Your peers compete with you for headcount and budget whatever the org chart says about collaboration. Your partner is tired of hearing about people they've never met. So you carry it, and call it seniority. There's no clever fix for this one. There's a standing hour with somebody who has held the seat, sits nowhere on your org chart, and has no stake at all in how you come across. That's the entire intervention, and most of its value is in the not-having-to-manage-the-listener part. Where it helps I also put you into the ELC network, 3,300+ engineering leaders across the region, most of whom have had the week you're having. From session one there's one room where nothing you say needs framing first. Related reads - [Why senior leaders need a room of peers](https://www.marian.coach/blog/community-of-practice-for-engineering-managers/) - [The isolation nobody warns you about](https://www.marian.coach/blog/from-vpe-to-solo-mentoring-year-one/) - [Carrying the weight without cracking](https://www.marian.coach/blog/how-to-excel-in-engineering-management/) ## The questions I hear most from Engineering leaders carrying the human load of the job These are the exact asks from mentees in the last 12 months. Bring one to the intro call and we start there. - How do I recover from burnout without quitting or losing my pay? - The laptop never switches off. How do I get my evenings and weekends back? - I have imposter syndrome in a role I earned. How do I get through it? - I hit every goal and feel nothing. Am I burned out, bored, or done? - I am isolated at the top. Who do senior engineering leaders talk to? - How do I set boundaries the org will respect? - My anxiety spikes every Sunday night. What do I do with that? - I think I need a sabbatical I cannot afford. What are my real options? - How do I stay a decent partner and parent while leading engineering? - Is it the job, or is it me? ## How mentoring with me works Free 30-min intro. Two KPIs to move in 3-6 months. Small homework after every session. The full method, step by step: [See how mentoring works →](https://www.marian.coach/#how-it-works) ## Frequently asked Is this therapy?+ No, and I'm not a therapist. I work with engineering leaders on engineering-leadership situations: the burnout, the isolation, the is-it-the-job-or-is-it-me question. If you need therapy, get therapy. Plenty of people do both and they sit together fine. Is this a soft feelings hour, or do we do something?+ We do something. Every session ends with one small specific move. It's the same method as my role-specific mentoring, pointed at the human load rather than the org chart. I don't want to look weak. Is this confidential?+ Fully. Nothing leaves the room. And I've sat where you're sitting, including the two years after I left a senior seat, which were harder than anything described on this page. You won't shock me. Can we talk about whether I should just quit?+ Yes. Sometimes leaving is the right answer and you'll hear me say so. More often the fix turns out to be smaller than quitting, and working out which one you're in takes a session or two rather than a resignation. What if I don't know what's wrong, only that something is?+ That's the most common starting point there is. The first session is usually just naming it, and it's often two or three things at once. You don't need a clean diagnosis to book. ## Explore other roles - [Career path Decision →](https://www.marian.coach/engineering-career-coach/) - [Increase your Salary →](https://www.marian.coach/increase-your-salary-and-value/) - [Get Hired: Talk to CTOs Directly →](https://www.marian.coach/get-hired-talk-to-ctos/) - [CTO, VP Engineering, Head of Engineering →](https://www.marian.coach/cto-mentor/) - [Engineering Director, Tribe Lead, Chapter Lead →](https://www.marian.coach/engineering-director-mentor/) - [Engineering Manager, Team Lead →](https://www.marian.coach/engineering-manager-mentor/) - [Senior or Staff Engineer →](https://www.marian.coach/staff-engineer-mentor/) - [Product Manager →](https://www.marian.coach/product-manager-mentor/) ## Why me ![Marian Kamenistak, mentor for Engineering leaders](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/marian-about.BisGE32e_mbivh.webp) 3,662 1:1 leadership sessions since 2019. Mentees rate every session from 0 to 10 right after it. Since 2024 the average is 9.17. - Been in the seat. Helped build Mews into a $2bn+ unicorn: 8 to 80 teams, roadmap still shipping. Advisor to Manta (acquired by IBM). - CEE-native, US-fluent. 3 years in the Bay Area as Principal Software Architect at Databricks. - Still highly technical. AI freak. Bullshit me on estimate, effort, code quality or architecture and I'll ask to see the code or your AI skill set. - Financially independent. I don't need your money. I'm financially retired. Seeing you grow is my payoff. - Direct. Mentoring first. I boost you fast. No esoteric loops. 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One quarter lists at €1,975. Build the inquiry with my AI and the same six sessions come to €1,778 — €296 a session. No more than 10 minutes from the first question to a formal itemized offer in your inbox. [Get my offer →](https://www.marian.coach/mentoring-chat/) [or connect your own AI assistant](https://www.marian.coach/mentoring-ai/) ## Ready to start? Free 30-min intro. No pricing conversation on the first call. We figure out if we can move your specific problem forward. That is it. [Book the intro →](https://www.marian.coach/meet)Or email [marian@marian.coach](mailto:marian@marian.coach) or call [+420 736 519 879](tel:+420736519879) Ordering this for someone on your team? [How it works for companies](https://www.marian.coach/engineering-leadership-program/) · [how to get the budget](https://www.marian.coach/get-your-company-to-pay-for-mentoring/) ## From the blog [All posts →](https://www.marian.coach/blog/) - [![Wide shot of a 1:1 community mentoring session in an atrium, two people in armchairs at a round table.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/mentoring-05.BrINwYEC_Z1otGeW.webp) ### Director of AI: Research, Product or Transformation Seat Director of AI can mean a research lead, a product AI builder or an enterprise adoption owner. Who each reports to, what it pays, and what to negotiate. 9 October 2026 · By Marian Read → ](https://www.marian.coach/director-of-ai-role/) - [![A mentor and an engineering leader in a 1:1 at a round table, talking across the mentoring zone sign.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/mentoring-07.CaYSBaNE_Z29eHul.webp) ### Engineering Manager Role: What You Own, What You Hand Over What is an engineering manager? The role, its real responsibilities, what a senior engineer hands over in the move, and four ways year one goes wrong. 9 October 2026 · By Marian Read → ](https://www.marian.coach/engineering-manager-role/) - [![Marian Kamenistak in a grey blazer against a teal curtain, warm smile.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/portrait-formal-smile-hero.DyHbyQ-m_12qtWF.webp) ### Head of AI: What the Role Owns, and Who Gets the Seat Head of AI: what the seat owns, the two roads into it, how it differs from Head of Engineering, and the contract to sign before you accept the title. 9 October 2026 · By Marian Read → ](https://www.marian.coach/head-of-ai-role/) ## Structured data ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"ProfessionalService","name":"Marian Kamenistak | Engineering Leadership Mentoring","url":"https://www.marian.coach/life-and-wellness/","image":"https://www.marian.coach/_astro/mentoring-06.CFmbsSxo_Z1Fn9BA.jpg","description":"1:1 wellbeing coaching for engineering leaders. 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