Hi, I’m Marian. I’m an ex-VP of Engineering and I act as Software Engineering Leadership mentor && fractional advisor.
I started coding at age 11. I progressed from a dev role to a team lead to a principal architect.
I naturally transitioned into management to make a more significant impact through leadership, leading dozens of teams to the top.
Explore my engineering journey
MentorING
impact
You’re looking for a partner in crime who will help you grow your team(s) and validate your thoughts. Somebody who’s been there, knows how it feels and will set you up for success on the timeline.
You want to gain trust, stand on both feet, and move away from operational pressure to thinking systematically / strategically.
Raising Engineering Managers is a challenge. Each person has a different starting point, path, and motivation why to turn into a Leader worth Following.
Elevate engineering leaders TO GROW AND DO PRODUCT BETTER.
Do you wish to know more? For inspiration, explore the topics mentees ask the most:
If you think of applying, see how mentoring works, what is the flow of the sessions and check you are okay with the rules, please:
I advise/help companies to boost their engineering org ecosystem to build products better.
If you’re intrigued to succeed in a specific company-wide topic: OKRs, product-led, Engineering metrics, internal audits, due diligence, structural shifts, career frameworks, and agility.
See the advisory case studies:
Year #2023 in numbers
An look-back of the mentoring sessions and advisory I offer, in data.
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Mentoring volume 317 sessions
From July 2022-June 2023
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Size 26 mentees
26 diverse mentees from 16 distinct #companies or individuals.
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duration 7.3 months
Maintained an average of 7.3 months of cooperation.
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composition 52 + 19 +29%
52% debutant engineering managers, 19% mid-level managers, 29% at CTO/CPO ranks.
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global reach 🇨🇿 🇺🇸🇬🇧🇸🇰🇮🇱
64% from the #czechrepublic, followed by 12% each from #US & #slovakia, 6% UK, and 3% each from #poland & #israel.
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inbound 74% WoM
74% word of mouth, 17% social media, 9% website.
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feedback 8.9 NPS
8.9 #NPS Score since feedback gathering started in Jan 2023.
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advisory 79 days
Volume: 79 days billed in 4 firms. Scope: Engineering metrics, audits, due diligence, structural shifts, career frameworks, and agility. Contract duration: 2–6 months.
Marian helped me a lot in my beginnings as a manager. He designed a company-wide program for beginning managers at Mews which in my view makes Mews one of the best companies for managers where to start. He helped me to avoid many initial mistakes and gave a lot of useful advices for the future.
Marian is a true leader with human approach worth following. Thank you!
Marian has a wealth of knowledge and experience, and is always willing to share it with others. I highly recommend him as a mentor to anyone looking to improve their leadership and management skills.
Selected Clients
SpeakER
impact
WRITER
impact
Writing is an excellent way to form my thoughts.
Why Marian?
My mentoring strategy puts me in an unbeatable spot.
A combo of mentoring (talking experience), advisory (putting things to practice and gathering feedback), and continuous learning (cultivating my knowledge) is my third eye.
#1️⃣ Learning
I invest one day a week into learning: reading loads of material, blog posts, writing, listening to podcasts, or speaking at various events, meetups, conferences, podcasts, and panel discussions.
It is tempting to abandon my learning day to earn more, but I believe I’d shortly end up talking about waterfall, mainframes and agile manifesto.
#2️⃣ Mentoring
If I give up on mentoring, I will weaken my network and individual leadership.
#3️⃣ Advisory
I spend two days weekly as a fractional advisor/CTO. Scope: Engineering metrics, internal audits, due diligence, structural shifts, career frameworks, and agility.
If I leave advisory, I will have zero opportunity to experience different situations and various client models to learn from and talk theory with no actual practice in the field. In essence, seeing what clients have built widens my knowledge.
Curious about what I read?
Transparency.
Create the right communication channels and open delivery & quality reports.
Consistency.
Define the trajectory. Keep the vector direction and stick to it, unless the strategy changes.
Lead by example.
Teach and grow others by delegating. Walk the walk. Learn continuously.
Kaizen.
Discuss improvements, not status updates. Limit the number of parallel streams.
My principles
Leadership.
We’ll survive the growth only if we create the right foundation based on leaders worth following. Processes will not save the world.
Strategy.
Ensure there is a live product and technical strategy people refer to. Connect the dots between the vision, mission, strategy, initiatives, and epics, up to developers’ tasks.
Cooperation.
Work in trios: product lead & engineering lead & design lead. Close the gap between product and engineering discovery and delivery. Build trust and assign autonomy.
Principles.
We have people compatible with our principles: be it company principles, technical or product principles. Build an environment where people are safe if they follow the principles.
Brand awareness.
Talent attracts talent. Build your brand and the hiring pipeline. Work with community management. Engage people to blog posting, meetups, speaking, hackatons, conferences, and more. Cooperate with your talent acquisition team.
Delivery.
Guarantee the contract of delivering 80+% of the roadmap. Average companies deliver ~ 50-60% of their goals. Gain a competitive advantage by having efficient teams.