---
title: "What Does an AI Engineering Manager's 8am Coffee Taste Like Today? | Talk by Marian Kamenistak"
description: "Yesterday your team shipped while you slept. This morning you find out what happened."
url: "https://www.marian.coach/speaker/ai-manager-8am-coffee/"
lang: "en"
image: "https://www.marian.coach/images/marian-kamenistak-og-image.jpg"
---

# What Does an AI Engineering Manager's 8am Coffee Taste Like Today?

Yesterday your team shipped while you slept. This morning you find out what happened.

For: CTOs, VPs of Engineering, Engineering Managers running AI-augmented teamsFormat: 45-60 min keynote or hands-on workshop

[Book this talk →](mailto:marian@marian.coach?subject=Speaking%20request%3A%20What%20Does%20an%20AI%20Engineering%20Manager's%208am%20Coffee%20Taste%20Like%20Today%3F)

![Marian Kamenistak presenting the 5 levels of AI adoption at an ELC engineering leadership meetup.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/talk-30.Bdh_i7to_Z1St6gB.webp)

## What does managing an AI engineering team look like day to day?

It is 8am, the coffee is brewing, and three agentic teams have been shipping since you went to bed. You have not written a line of code. This one is hands-on: you build and direct agentic product teams with Claude Code in the room. Never opened a terminal? You will here, for the first time, and it will not be scary.

You leave with a working setup on your own machine, the free AI toolkit wired into it, and a morning routine that starts with triage instead of standup prep.

## Why this talk, not a generic version of it

Coffee's not even finished and three agentic teams have been shipping since the attendee went to sleep. This is the hands-on one: people who've never opened a terminal do it here, live, directing an agentic team inside the session instead of watching a slide about one.

Built for CTOs and engineering managers already living that sentence, waking up to work three teams did overnight and not yet sure whether to feel relieved or worried. The takeaway is a working setup on their own machine, wired to the free AI toolkit, so triage starts before the next standup instead of after it.

What the room walks out with:

[Get the AI toolkit →](https://www.marian.coach/ai-coaching-tools/)

## Quick answers

Who is "What Does an AI Engineering Manager's 8am Coffee Taste Like Today?" for?

CTOs, VPs of Engineering, Engineering Managers running AI-augmented teams

What format is it delivered in?

45-60 min keynote or hands-on workshop

## More talks

-   [How to Turn from Employee to a Portfolio of Skills Delivering Value.](https://www.marian.coach/speaker/portfolio-of-skills/)
-   [12 Steps to Boost Your Market Value](https://www.marian.coach/speaker/12-steps-market-value/)
-   [Learn or Die: 11 Steps to Create a Strong Learning & Growth Culture](https://www.marian.coach/speaker/learn-or-die-growth-culture/)
-   [Inspiration: From Developer to Principal Architect in Silicon Valley to Unicorn Builder](https://www.marian.coach/speaker/developer-to-unicorn-builder/)
-   [90-Day Playbook for Building a High-Performing AI Team](https://www.marian.coach/speaker/90-day-ai-team-playbook/)
-   [Boosting Your Teams' Productivity? Why DORA Will Not Save Your A\*\*](https://www.marian.coach/speaker/dora-wont-save-you/)
-   [The Tech Lead Who Never Let Go of the Keyboard](https://www.marian.coach/speaker/tech-lead-never-let-go-keyboard/)
-   [Is Your Coach Worth the Money?](https://www.marian.coach/speaker/is-your-coach-worth-it/)
-   [Most 1:1s Are Just Surviving. Let's Change That.](https://www.marian.coach/speaker/fix-your-1-1s/)

[← Back to all talks](https://www.marian.coach/speaker/)

## Structured data

```json
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"ProfessionalService","name":"Marian Kamenistak | Engineering Leadership Mentoring","url":"https://www.marian.coach/speaker/ai-manager-8am-coffee/","image":"https://www.marian.coach/images/marian-kamenistak-og-image.jpg","description":"Yesterday your team shipped while you slept. This morning you find out what happened.","serviceType":["Engineering leadership mentoring","Engineering manager coaching","CTO coaching","Fractional CTO","Leadership development for software engineers"],"hasOfferCatalog":{"@type":"OfferCatalog","name":"Engineering leadership mentoring and advisory","itemListElement":[{"@type":"Offer","itemOffered":{"@type":"Service","name":"1:1 engineering leadership mentoring","description":"One-to-one mentoring for engineering leaders from Staff Engineer to CTO. 60-minute sessions, weekly or bi-weekly.","url":"https://www.marian.coach/pricing/"}},{"@type":"Offer","itemOffered":{"@type":"Service","name":"Engineering manager coaching","description":"Coaching for first-time and experienced engineering managers: delegation, performance, hiring, team scaling.","url":"https://www.marian.coach/engineering-manager-mentor/"}},{"@type":"Offer","itemOffered":{"@type":"Service","name":"CTO and VP Engineering mentoring","description":"Mentoring for CTOs, VPs of Engineering and Heads of Engineering running 30-200 person organisations.","url":"https://www.marian.coach/cto-mentor/"}},{"@type":"Offer","itemOffered":{"@type":"Service","name":"Mentor in Residence","description":"A dedicated onsite mentor for your engineering organisation, booked by the quarter.","url":"https://www.marian.coach/mentor-in-residence/"}},{"@type":"Offer","itemOffered":{"@type":"Service","name":"Fractional CTO","description":"Part-time CTO engagements for companies without a full-time technology leader.","url":"https://www.marian.coach/fractional-cto/"}}]},"telephone":"+420 736 519 879","email":"marian@marian.coach","sameAs":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariankamenistak/","https://www.youtube.com/@engineeringleaders","https://github.com/marian-kamenistak","https://www.engineeringleaders.io/","https://twitter.com/marian_coaches","https://www.elc-conference.io/","https://www.marianslist.com/","https://www.mentoringhub.io/"],"address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"Varšavská 715/36, Vinohrady","addressLocality":"Praha 2","postalCode":"12000","addressCountry":"CZ"},"geo":{"@type":"GeoCoordinates","latitude":50.0734418,"longitude":14.4385757},"openingHoursSpecification":[{"@type":"OpeningHoursSpecification","dayOfWeek":["Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday"],"opens":"09:00","closes":"17:00"}],"priceRange":"361–430 EUR","areaServed":[{"@type":"Place","name":"Europe"},{"@type":"Country","name":"Czechia"},{"@type":"Country","name":"Slovakia"},{"@type":"Country","name":"Poland"},{"@type":"Place","name":"North America"}]}
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Person","@id":"https://www.marian.coach/#person","name":"Marian Kamenistak","url":"https://www.marian.coach/","image":"https://www.marian.coach/images/marian-kamenistak-og-image.jpg","jobTitle":["Engineering Leadership Mentor","Engineering Manager Coach","CTO Coach","Keynote Speaker"],"hasOccupation":{"@type":"Occupation","name":"Engineering Leadership Mentor"},"worksFor":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Engineering Leaders Community","url":"https://www.engineeringleaders.io/"},"alumniOf":[{"@type":"Organization","name":"Mews"},{"@type":"Organization","name":"Manta (acquired by IBM)"},{"@type":"Organization","name":"Databricks"}],"knowsLanguage":["English","Czech","Slovak"],"knowsAbout":["Engineering leadership","Engineering management","Scaling engineering teams","CTO mentoring","Engineering org design","VP of Engineering role","Engineering director role","CTPO role","Team lead development","Staff engineer career path","Fractional CTO engagements","AI-assisted engineering leadership","Conference keynotes on engineering leadership","Panel moderation","Podcast guest — engineering leadership"],"homeLocation":{"@type":"Place","name":"Prague, Czechia"},"sameAs":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariankamenistak/","https://www.youtube.com/@engineeringleaders","https://github.com/marian-kamenistak","https://www.engineeringleaders.io/","https://twitter.com/marian_coaches","https://www.elc-conference.io/","https://www.marianslist.com/","https://www.mentoringhub.io/","https://www.crunchbase.com/person/marian-kamenistak","https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q140488098","https://developers.mews.com/author/marian/","https://startupdisrupt.com/speakers/marian-kamenistak/","https://theorg.com/org/engineering-leaders-community/org-chart/marian-kamenistak"]}
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","url":"https://www.marian.coach/speaker/ai-manager-8am-coffee/","name":"What Does an AI Engineering Manager's 8am Coffee Taste Like Today? | Talk by Marian Kamenistak","inLanguage":"en","dateModified":"2026-08-22T14:59:58.914Z"}
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://www.marian.coach/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Speaker","item":"https://www.marian.coach/speaker/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"What Does an AI Engineering Manager's 8am Coffee Taste Like Today?","item":"https://www.marian.coach/speaker/ai-manager-8am-coffee/"}]}
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"CreativeWork","name":"What Does an AI Engineering Manager's 8am Coffee Taste Like Today?","abstract":"Yesterday your team shipped while you slept. This morning you find out what happened.","description":"It is 8am, the coffee is brewing, and three agentic teams have been shipping since you went to bed. You have not written a line of code. This one is hands-on: you build and direct agentic product teams with Claude Code in the room. Never opened a terminal? You will here, for the first time, and it will not be scary. You leave with a working setup on your own machine, the free AI toolkit wired into it, and a morning routine that starts with triage instead of standup prep.","url":"https://www.marian.coach/speaker/ai-manager-8am-coffee/","audience":{"@type":"Audience","audienceType":"CTOs, VPs of Engineering, Engineering Managers running AI-augmented teams"},"creator":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https://www.marian.coach/#person","name":"Marian Kamenistak"},"inLanguage":"en","mainEntityOfPage":"https://www.marian.coach/ai-coaching-tools/"}
```