Community Partner Program
Hire, educate & impress the best engineering leaders in Central Europe.
3,100+ CTOs, VPs & tech leads. 120+ per meetup. 500+ at the ELC conference.
Engineering Leaders Community (ELC) is the largest community of senior engineering leaders in Central Europe: 3,100+ CTOs, VPs of Engineering, engineering managers and tech leads, meeting across Prague, Brno, Bratislava and Kraków since 2019. Companies partner with ELC to hire senior engineers, develop the leaders they already have, or put a product in front of the people who approve budgets.
- Who is in the room
- At least 88 CTOs, 44 VPs of Engineering, 173 Directors and Heads of Engineering, 289 Engineering Managers and 132 founders, counted from recorded member titles. 120+ attend each of the 12 monthly meetups.
- Where
- Prague, Brno, Bratislava and Kraków. Members work at Productboard, Kiwi.com, Ataccama, GitLab and 50+ other companies.
- Investment
- From a free layer at €0 to €32,000 a year with category exclusivity. Maximum 10 partners per year.
- What it is not
- No booths, no badge scanners, no paid talks. Recruiters and agencies cannot buy a partnership.
A partnership includes
- A meetup hosted at your office, 80 to 150 senior engineering leaders in the room, with your engineer on stage
- Speaker slots at ELC meetups and the annual conference, 500+ attendees, rated 4.8 stars
- A private dinner with 8+ engineering decision-makers from your category, curated by ELC
- Placement in the Leaders' Brief newsletter: 2,800+ subscribers, 74% open rate
- Access to Marian's List, 182 vetted engineering leaders with 62 actively looking
- Senior mentors and ELC Academy seats for your own engineering managers, built on 3,400+ mentoring sessions
- Attendee lists before and after every meetup, plus 4 priority seats at all 12 of them
- Category exclusivity: one partner per category per year, across 8 categories
Two answers and your package builds itself.
Pick your problem, set your budget, and watch the right package assemble on the right. No form, no waiting, no sales call to see a price.
Supernova · Boost your talent
Your best engineering managers are learning on the job. Alone.
Pick 3 of your leaders. Each gets a senior mentor for a 3-month engagement plus a structured Academy curriculum, next to a peer network of 3,100+ who handled the same fires. 300 leaders mentored so far, 3,400+ unique sessions, 17+ countries. Any mentoring session rated below 7 of 10 is free.
Nebula · Hire and be known
Senior engineers do not answer recruiters. They answer people they trust.
Host a meetup in your office and 80 to 150 senior leaders walk through it. Get access to Marian's List, 182 vetted engineering leaders with 62 actively looking right now, with direct intros when you ask. Across partners, 2.7 leaders a month move from this community into partner teams. A recruiter charges €15 to €25K per senior hire. One hire here pays the year back.
Quasar · Highlight your product
Your buyers are ad-blind. They are not dinner-blind.
A private dinner with 8+ decision-makers from your category, curated by ELC. Your engineers on stage twice a year, passing the same real-stories filter every speaker passes. And if you want the category to yourself, exclusivity exists: one partner per category, 8 categories, first to commit locks it for 12 months.
Opening an engineering site in CEE? The network is the hard part.
A new site lives or dies on the first 10 senior hires and the local reputation that attracts them. That is not a package on a shelf, so this one starts with a conversation.
See what fits a new siteYou do not have to start big.
Two rungs below a full partnership. Your managers can be in a room this month, and a quarter later you will know whether it is working.
Stardust
€0
12 meetups a year, 120+ leaders in each room, across Prague, Brno, Bratislava and Kraków. A newsletter 2,800+ leaders read at a 74% open rate. Talks, knowledge sources and the AI Toolkit on top.
- Seats at 12 monthly meetups
- Leaders' Brief newsletter
- ELC community Slack
- Knowledge base and AI Toolkit
- Talks from every meetup on YouTube
- Learning feed for your team channel
No invoice, no contract. Your managers can start this month.
See the free layer
Entry tierOrbit
€5,000 per year
Three of your managers keep growing all year: a peer circle seat each, mentoring every quarter, and seats at the conference.
- Peer circle seats for 3 of your managers, 12 months
- 8 mentoring sessions a year, 2 every quarter
- 3 priority conference seats
Want a quarter first? The Leadership Pilot is €2,500 for three managers over 90 days, and it is one quarter of this.
Participation model
You don’t sponsor us. You participate.
We don’t do passive partnerships. No logo-and-goodbye, no yearly invoice into silence. Seven channels into the only CEE community where every talk passes a real-stories filter, and the talk is just the pretext.
01
Your leaders on our stage
Speaker slots at meetups and the conference, passing the same real-stories filter every speaker passes. No sales decks.
02
In 2,800+ inboxes, monthly
Leaders' Brief newsletter with a 74% open rate. Logo placements, spotlights, your hardest roles.
03
On 8,000+ LinkedIn feeds
Posts from the ELC page, amplified by real CTOs and VPs. Not bots, not paid reach.
04
In the room, off the badge scanner
Priority seats at every monthly meetup, attendee lists before and after, curated dinners. No booth, no QR lead form.
05
On camera, reusable for a year
Pro photo and video at every event you host or speak at. Raw and edited, yours to reuse.
06
In the background, all year
Website, event slides, recaps, the members Slack. Your name keeps showing up where leaders already are.
07
At the April conference
Team tickets, partner rates on the main stage, 500+ leaders in one building.
See the community vibe
Real talks, real rooms, real people. Judge the energy yourself.
Watch the meetups
We deliver outcomes, not budget spend.
These are not attendees. They are the people leading engineering at Productboard, Kiwi.com, Ataccama, GitLab and 50+ top companies.
Who holds which title
- 10% IC to Leader (29)
- 27% Line Manager (78)
- 20% Product Managers (57)
- 23% Mid-level Managers (66)
- 20% Top Managers (57)
- Tech Lead 6%
- Staff/Principal 4%
- Engineering Manager 17%
- Team Lead 10%
- PM 11%
- Product Director 6%
- Product Owner 3%
- Chapter Lead 3%
- Tribe Lead 4%
- Director 6%
- VP Engineering 6%
- Head of Engineering 4%
- CTO 12%
- CPO 5%
- CEO/Founder 3%
Seniority mix across 287 leaders in the ELC mentoring cohort. Community-wide title counts sit in the numbers below.
2019
Founded
3,100+
Community members
120+
Per monthly meetup
40+
Meetups held
4
Cities
82
Speakers on an ELC stage
2,800+
Newsletter subscribers
74%
Newsletter open rate
500+
At the annual conference
4.8*
Conference rating
3,400+
Mentoring sessions delivered
300
Leaders mentored
2.7
Leaders a month into partner teams
182
Vetted leaders on Marian’s List
Company case studies: What ELC delivered
2 years in
4 co-hosted meetups including the Kraków expansion. 3 Director+ leaders hired.
2 years in
4 senior hires including a VP Platform, sourced from passive candidates.
3 years in
Longest-running partner. 4 meetups at their venue, conference partner.
ELC speakers and leaders come from
82 speakers on an ELC stage so far. Every one passed the real-stories filter.
ELC Conference
The Highlight of the year for every Engineering Leader
The ELC Conference brings together engineering and product leaders from across Europe for a full day of talks, networking, and inspiration. Expect real stories from real teams from scaling culture to leading through uncertainty.
April
2027
500+
attendees
20+
speakers
all day
event
The companies behind the room
We take max 10 partners per year.
Ruthlessly supporting the engineering ecosystems. They invest in engineering leaders, show up at events, and build trust through contribution, not ads.
⭐ Quasar Partners
💥 Supernova Partners
🌀 Orbit Partners
Questions partners ask
Who is in the ELC community?
3,100+ engineering leaders across Prague, Brno, Bratislava and Kraków. 69% Manager+ · 21% Senior/Staff IC. Members come from Productboard, Kiwi.com, Ataccama, GitLab and 50+ others. Founded 2019, 5 peer circles, 12 meetups a year.
Who shows up at meetups?
120+ senior leaders per meetup, 12 times a year. By recorded titles the community holds at least 88 CTOs, 44 VPs of Engineering, 173 Directors and Heads of Engineering, 289 Engineering Managers and 132 founders.
How is ELC funded?
By partners, not member fees. Membership stays free for engineering leaders, which is why the room stays senior and shows up. Your partnership pays for the meetups, the mentoring and the Academy, and members know who makes it possible.
What does a partnership cost?
From free to a full-year package. Stardust is €0 and running today. Above it, every item carries its own price on the membership page, where you assemble the package yourself and watch the total move. Foundation items anchor each package, the rest swaps freely.
Can we be the only vendor in our category?
Yes. Category exclusivity is capped at one partner per category per year across 8 categories. First to commit locks it.
Why partner instead of running our own events?
40+ meetups since 2019, the same 3,100+ people, every month. One event of your own buys you one audience once. A year here compounds into the same room seeing you twelve times.
The room is real. Come see it.
Bring one colleague to the next meetup as a guest, no commitment. Or start assembling your membership now.