Marian Kamenistak
Engineering Leaders Community
Time to Value, Release cycle, Software talent, Team autonomy, Scalability
Since 2022 · Open seats · in-house cohorts · company subscription
Leadership training for engineering managers, rebuilt for the AI era.
Your newly promoted engineer stops drowning. Your senior managers stop being the escalation point for four teams. Taught by operators who scaled engineering through Series C, not consultants reading case studies.
From the founder
Why this academy exists.
Marian on the jump nobody trains you for: from shipping code to running the people who ship it. The same jump he made from 8 to 80 teams at Mews, minus the years of guessing.
Trusted by teams who build things that matter
Start free
Your engineering leaders can start learning this month. For nothing.
2,000+ are already in the community. 120+ in the room every month. The Leaders’ Brief lands once a month with one thing you can use Monday. No seat, no invoice.
01
The monthly meetup
120+ engineering leaders in the room, 12 times a year. Your people walk in, meet peers who have handled the same fire, and walk out with something that works.
02
The Leaders’ Brief
Once a month. One framework you can run on Monday, the best writing and talks from the field, and where the next meetup is. Signal, not spam.
03
Slack
MS Teams
The content feed
Every meetup talk, article and podcast as one feed. Drop the link into Slack or MS Teams and your learning channel fills itself.
SlackMS TeamsYou lead or build
Join 2,000+ who compare notes before they make the call
Senior and Staff engineers, product builders, engineering managers, directors, VPEs, CTOs. Sit the monthly meetup, get the Brief, ask the room. Free, no invoice.
You run People or L&D
Give your engineers real learning without building a single slide
Subscribe the talent you are growing to the Brief. Take our talks, articles and podcast as one feed, drop it into Slack or MS Teams, and the learning channel posts itself.
SlackMS TeamsSomeone on your team worth hearing?Put them on the ELC stage in front of 120+ leaders →
The bet
You pay after. If we score under 7, you pay 20%.
Nobody invoices you before the room happens. Your people sit the workshop, they score it, then we bill. Score 7 or above and you pay in full. Under 7 and you pay 20%.
That is not generosity. It is the cheapest way we know to say we back the room. A training company that needs your money before it delivers is telling you something about its own confidence in the lecturer it just booked.
In-house cohorts
Tailored Leadership Training for Your Ambitions
No two organizations are the same. That is why our learning designers have crafted a selection of sessions focused on the key challenges faced by today's leaders. We work together to customize these sessions specifically to your needs. Our experts do the heavy lifting throughout the process and craft the program that is just right for your organization.
Programs · two to three days
Four programs. The ladder from first-time manager to leading leaders.
This is the whole job, not one skill patched. Start at the level you sit at today, or start at the top with the AI-native flagship.
★ 2026 BestsellerA1The AI-Native Engineering Manager
Everything the ladder builds, rebuilt around AI: your priorities, your spend decisions, your pipeline, and your reporting.
On the agenda
- 01Run yourself. The morning AI routine.
- 02Decide. Manual vs AI vs which model, with real cost math.
- 03Run the team. Adoption without AI theater.
- 04Run the pipeline. AI-native value delivery.
42,000 CZK per seatSee Full agenda(opens in a new tab)
L1The First-Time Engineering Manager
Your newly promoted engineer, running the team on purpose in two days.
On the agenda
- 01The first 90 days
- 02Your role and your manager’s expectations
- 03The top 5 behaviors that kill new managers
- 04The hours decision you make once, not daily
27,560 CZK per seatSee Full agenda(opens in a new tab)
L2Leading a High-Performing Team
From "delivers, mostly" to a 6-month plan for 80%+ roadmap delivery.
On the agenda
- 01From average to high-performing in 6 months
- 02Career growth that keeps seniors from leaving
- 03Performance evaluation interviews, the hard versions
- 04Speak in dollars to top management
27,560 CZK per seatSee Full agenda(opens in a new tab)
L3Leading Engineering Leaders
Stop being the escalation point for 4+ teams. Lead the leaders.
On the agenda
- 01From average to high-performing, through your managers
- 02The succession map, names in boxes and dates on transitions
- 03Performance reviews that managers respect
- 04Executive communication: speak in dollars
32,000 CZK per seatSee Full agenda(opens in a new tab)
Masterclasses · one day
Six masterclasses. Fix one hard thing in a day, not a term.
The hire you keep missing. The roadmap nobody believes. The budget you cannot defend. Pick the one that is on fire and book it.
★ 2026 BestsellerM1Ship AI Adoption, Skip the Theater
Find which of the 5 levels of AI adoption your team is on, and leave with the KPIs that prove the value.
On the agenda
- 01Escape pilot purgatory.
- 02Reskill the team, without the reorg circus.
- 03Prove the money before finance asks.
- 04Move AI from toy to pipeline.
14,900 CZK per seatSee Full agenda(opens in a new tab)
★ 2026 BestsellerM2Build a Team That Ships
Hire the right engineers, keep them, and keep them from quitting.
On the agenda
- 01Hire the engineer who ships
- 02Land them in 3 weeks, not 3 months
- 03Keep them motivated, on purpose
- 04See the quit coming, build the bench
12,900 CZK per seatSee Full agenda(opens in a new tab)
M3Ship Outcomes, Not Features
Price your unused features and rewrite the roadmap as outcomes.
On the agenda
- 01The audit. What unused features cost you.
- 02The rewrite. From feature spec to outcome.
- 03The pushback. When engineers resist outcome metrics.
- 04The dialogue. Negotiating outcomes with product.
12,900 CZK per seatSee Full agenda(opens in a new tab)
M4The Conversations Engineers Avoid
Hold the feedback and conflict you keep postponing, this week.
On the agenda
- 01The feedback you keep postponing
- 02The architecture fight
- 03Saying no upward
- 04Feedback in writing
12,900 CZK per seatSee Full agenda(opens in a new tab)
★ 2026 BestsellerM5Speak Money, Tech People Talk Business
A board-ready budget case, stress-tested against a live "no."
On the agenda
- 01The headcount meeting where you asked for 3 and got 0
- 02The tech-debt argument you lost to a feature
- 03The AI tooling line nobody can justify
- 04The board one-pager and the live “no”
12,900 CZK per seatSee Full agenda(opens in a new tab)
M6Own the Room
Put your best engineer on a real stage in front of 120 leaders.
On the agenda
- 01The talk nobody remembers
- 02Technical credibility, out loud
- 03The ambassador move
- 04The real stage
12,900 CZK per seatSee Full agenda(opens in a new tab)
Why this exists
Promoting a great engineer into a failing manager is the most expensive gamble in your org.
A badly led six-person team leaks around 3.6M CZK a year in efficiency. Replacing one senior lost to bad management runs another 2 to 3M. The Academy is one job, turn stuck engineering managers into leaders whose teams ship and stay, bought in three sizes: an open seat, an in-house cohort, or a yearly subscription.
The difference
Why Our Trainings Stick
01
Betting 80%
We're confident in our lecturers and the consistently high feedback from our workshops. If your rating drops below 7/10, you get 80% off. No advance payment.
02
Measured Impact by KPIs
No good feelings. We define clear KPIs: eNPS, communication efficiency, leadership confidence, team alignment. We measure.
03
Tailored Journey
No two companies are the same. That's why our workshop is a tailored journey, designed around your company's goals and context.
04
Top People, Real Change
We know a slightly better workshop isn't enough. Without top-quality people, change gets rejected.
05
Adoption and On-site Shadowing
Interactive quizzes and gamified new practices directly in your digital channels with your workshop attendees.
06
We Enable Ambassadors
Together we purposely select people from your talent pool who ensure the new practice comes true long-term.
Real rooms
No stock photos. Your manager sits in these rooms.
Workshops, cohorts, and the monthly meetup 120+ leaders show up to.
Faculty
Our Lecturing Masterminds
Our team is unique. We are not consultants selling academic theories or empty certificates. They have built multiple unicorn companies and helped organizations scale from startups to scale-ups to established corporates.
Jiri Helmich
B2B Minds
Product Discovery, Features vs Outcomes, Product Trio, Stakeholder management, Experimentation
Jan Fried
Strategic Advisor
Product vision, Product strategy, Planning, OKRs, Outcome roadmap, Product culture
Zuzana Hrušková
Pleo (ex-Mews)
Product Design
Jitka Čurdová
Wrike
UX and Market Researcher, Psychologist
Vendula Richter
Odin.gg
Marketing Leader, Strategy and GTM
Vojta Tůma
Keboola
AI in Business, Data Strategy, Analytics, AI Adoption
Michal Ličko
Visionvolve
AI in Tech, AI Transformation, AI Innovation, Product & Engineering
How it works
The way we tailor your growth journey
- 01
Tailor
We match with your situation, ambition and potential. We pick specific modules, customise content and the narrative.
- 02
Assessments
With proven tools we reveal key areas for growth: skills, mindset, and behavior, giving you a clear picture of strengths and weaknesses.
- 03
Training
Our workshops are practical and interactive, led by industry experts. We focus on real challenges and measurable behavior change, not just theory.
- 04
On-Site Immersion
Extra modules on-site with specific teams, so you shadow their daily work and activate new ways of working directly in practice.
- 05
Measure Outcome
We track progress through feedback, metrics, and team results. You see tangible improvements in collaboration, decision-making, and effectiveness.
Success story
The pillars of a strong IT manager
Master communication and leadership: manage stakeholders, handle conflict, and escalate effectively. Focus teams on results, align goals with agile cycles, and drive success with data-driven decisions.
Read the full success story“What a ride. Just two days saved me weeks or even months of searching for the right direction blindfolded. Marian is a top-tier mentor with deep expertise. The course dives into practice-heavy topics, a real cookbook so you can start applying lessons immediately.”
Tomáš GluchmanLead UX Engineer, ŠKODA AUTO“Confronting personal experience with insights from a senior professional and real-life examples gave me a new perspective. Influencing your manager comes down to a winning formula: Problem plus Data plus Solution plus Metrics plus ROI.”
Mirek RatmanEng Manager and Team Lead, Avast“How to work with leadership principles and values, live them, and become a leader worth following. I really appreciated Marian's no-bullshit attitude. Running effective decision-making meetings became clear, actionable, and efficient.”
Jan PalencarTeam LeaderQuestions
The things buyers actually ask.
What does a seat cost, and when do I pay?
Seats run from 27,560 CZK for a 2-day course to 42,000 CZK for the 3-day flagship. Level 3 for directors and VPs is 32,000 CZK. Prices are per person, excl. VAT, and published on every course page, not sent on request. You pay after the workshop, never before. Your people score it: 7 or above you pay in full, under 7 you pay 20%.
Public course or an in-house cohort for my team?
One or two people leveling up: book seats on the next public date. A whole team that needs the same playbook: an in-house cohort runs on your org chart, your codebase, your numbers, priced per cohort instead of per seat. Tell us the team and the goal and we build it to fit.
Is this in person or remote? And where?
In person. Prague, Brno, Bratislava, Krakow. The hard part of engineering leadership is the conversation you keep avoiding, and nobody rehearses that over a muted Zoom call. The room is the product.
Who actually teaches?
Marian Kamenistak leads it. He grew Mews engineering from 8 to 80 teams through Series C, ran leadership at Manta before IBM bought it, and has logged 3,400+ mentoring sessions with 300+ leaders in 17+ countries. Guest faculty come from companies like Pleo, Keboola, and Wrike, each teaching the thing they shipped, not a slide deck they bought.
How is this different from the leadership training my company already buys?
Most engineering leadership content is recycled US thinking that ignores how teams actually run in Central Europe. This is built for a CTO in Prague or Brno, not a keynote from San Francisco. And the predecessor courses scored 9.3 out of 10 across 54 reviews, so the room holds up.
Can I set up my whole company, not just one course?
Yes. A yearly company subscription gives every leader free community membership plus paid learning across the catalog. Three tiers: Team at 390,000 CZK, Scale at 720,000, Org at 1,080,000, per year, excl. VAT. The bigger the org, the lower the cost per head.
Stop paying the tuition on bad management.
Start with the flagship, send a manager to the ladder, or subscribe the whole company. Prices are on the page. Booking is the next click.