I turn
Engineering Managers
into
Leaders worth Following

Hi, I’m Marian. I’m an ex-VP of Engineering and I act as Software Engineering Leadership mentor && fractional advisor.

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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.

I have extensive experience in engineering, encompassing all its amusing and challenging nuances in various situations, from growing individual leaders I’ll rely upon, up to designing the delivery flow and growing the teams.

Explore my engineering journey 🚀

MentorING

impact

Engineering manager coach

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.

My mission is to

Elevate engineering leaders TO GROW AND DO PRODUCT BETTER.

Do you wish to know more? For inspiration, explore the topics mentees ask the most:

Explore mentoring topics >>

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:

Read how mentoring works >>
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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:

Case satudies >>

Year #2023 in numbers

An look-back of the mentoring sessions and advisory I offer, in data.

317 mentoring session in a year
avatars mentoring reviews
Since 2020, I have helped 55+ exclusive mentees from 7+ countries 🇨🇿 🇺🇸 🇸🇰 🇩🇪 🇬🇧 🇮🇱 🇳🇱 in their engineering leadership journey. Read the reviews. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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! 🙏

Vaclav Ryska
Václav Ryška
Engineering Manager @ Mews
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Michal Danilák
Co-Founder & CTO at Monitora.
Marian has been incredibly helpful in my professional development. In my conversations with him, he helped me transition from an operational role to a more strategic one. He not only showed me how to grow a team, but also emphasized the importance of understanding the “why” behind it. In each session, he provided me with practical tips and recommendations for tools and other valuable resources.

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.
Mentees' feedback

Selected Clients

pure storage
apify
kosik cz
calendly logo
mews
41b2eacd 327a 4e92 aa4d affd8c21ca7c 1562238373949
Atlassian
rohlik cz
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278px Kiwi.com logo.svg
monitora
cloudtalk
fakturoid
ceska sporitelna
bfl
dr max
trezor logo e1679385384421
deepnote
rouvy logo
innovatrics.
websupport mentoring
carvago logo
credo ventures

SpeakER

impact

Netflix Netflix: High-performing teams

High performing engineering teams

PlatoHQ Elevate Summit

Product & Engineering synergy

product in agile conference speaker

Conference Product InAgile

Engineering leadership in practice

czpodcast
🇨🇿 CZ podcast

Path to High Performing Teams: June 2023

in agile

Conference InAgile

🚀 Set up engineering leaders up for success

growing new engineering leaders podcast
Scriptease podcast

🎯 OKRs in Software Engineering

OKRs roadmap balance
Panel discussion

Path to High-performing teams

techfellows meetup
TechFellows meetup

Personal growth: Learn or Die 🎓

At work, do you need to be a stronger weightlifter to outdo more senior guys? Not necessarily. The difference lies in learning. You will come to a point where knowledge gathering from more senior peers becomes less enriching. While reading, you might stumble upon an article describing an obscure tool or innovative technology that could solve your product’s issue. In two days, you’ll come up with an integration of the new cloud service mentioned in ThoughWorks radar as a working prototype. Meanwhile, the more experienced developers suggest implementing a solution from scratch, estimating two months. After some time, people come for advice, a senior manager asks for your opinion. Fast-forward, you end up in a software architect role. Turn your learning into a routine In the beginning, the challenging thing is to get organized. Gather your knowledge sources first First, write down your small knowledge source catalog of various personal and company blogs, articles, podcasts and newsletters.
Scriptease podcast

How is mentoring helping you grow?

Engineering manager coach
🇨🇿 CZ podcast

Performance reviews how to

programhrovani

ProgramHRovani podcast

Change management in engineering

How to make changes successful in engineering teams

kiwi.com panel discussion

Plato Circle class

plato circle

Plato

🇨🇿 Jak mentoring pomáhá Tech Leaderům

jury e1679386260467

IT svet podle Jury podcast

🇨🇿 Tipy a triky jak vyhrát v interview

junior guru

Junior guru podcast

🇨🇿 Engineering leadership meetup

e6

Meetup site

🇨🇿 Jak udělat z vývojáře manažera?

jak z vývojáře na manažera?

mladypodnikatel.cz

WRITER

impact

In engineering management, my vision is to create a productive software delivery environment that developers are proud to work in, with a focus on tangible outcomes across the company. It’s a system with the proper guidelines and the right level of automation, so standard development work gets done seamlessly. That’s why, in the engineering department, we implemented real-time team health boards. It gave us back some precious time to focus on systematic process improvements. To fulfill such ambitions, the standard set of predefined methodology (Scrum, for example) and the ticketing system won’t do the trick out-of-the-box. Measure What Matters Most: Roadmap Focus The problem I struggle with most is the gap between software development ticketing tools and product management solutions.
Many software companies have adopted the OKR system. Compared to the old-fashioned yearly SMART goals, the shorter quarterly-based objectives of OKRs are more likely to result in strategic initiative completion due to the shorter feedback loop and regular monthly updates. On the other hand, it is more challenging for a manager to handle the condensed 3-month cycle right and deliver outcomes. Scenario Practically speaking, after the OKR system is introduced to the company, most people have the impression of being on a runaway train. The Q3 goals have barely started and in two months we come to the end. We push goals over the finish line while, in parallel, we are supposed to start preparing the new Q4 objectives. Initiatives seem to have neither beginning nor end. As the result, you can find your department misses its goals by a huge margin.
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Oftentimes I would hear stakeholders or PMs complaining that the engineering team repeatedly fails to complete their work on time. They would push even harder on deadlines assuming that that would help. In reality, it only creates additional tension that helps no one. They would also try adding artificial buffers, further complicating the problem. However, estimates themselves are rarely a problem and constant delays are usually caused by things other than inaccurate estimates. Therefore, don’t let yourself be held hostage by estimates!

Writing is an excellent way to form my thoughts.

See blog posts

Why Marian?

My mentoring strategy puts me in an unbeatable spot.

mentoring triangle of strength

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

I dedicate two days a week to 1-hour mentoring sessions, 3–4 sessions daily. The rest is preparation and operational work.

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?

See my source of wisdom

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 principles Marian Kamenistak

THE WAY I UNDERSTAND
AN ENGINEERING ORG ECOSYSTEM

my experience in engineering leadership

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.

Mentoring conditions >>
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