Data · updated 2026-08-22
Engineering leadership in Central Europe, counted.
Every figure on this page is counted in a live system, not estimated in a survey. Members sit in the community registry, meetups in the public Luma calendar, mentoring sessions in a log kept since 2019. Each number names its source and the date it was last verified. Journalists, researchers and fellow leaders: cite freely, the format is at the bottom of the page.
How many engineering leaders are in the community
3,207 members in August 2026, counted from the member registry and republished nightly. The community started in 2019 and runs inPrague, Brno, Bratislava and Kraków.
- 3,200+
- engineering leaders in the community
- 40+
- public meetups held since 2019
- 120+
- leaders in the room at an average meetup
- 12
- meetups a year across four cities
- 5
- active peer circles
- 82
- people who have spoken at an ELC event
How many CTOs, VPs and Directors the community holds
Counted from the 1263 member profiles with a recorded title, out of 3172 active members at the count date. 60% of profiles carry no title, so read each figure as a floor, never as a share of the whole community.
| Recorded title | Members, at least |
|---|---|
| CTO or CIO | 88 |
| VP of Engineering | 44 |
| Director or Head of Engineering | 173 |
| Engineering Manager or Team Lead | 289 |
| Staff, Principal or Architect | 112 |
| Founder or executive | 132 |
Across the member base, 69% Manager+ · 21% Senior/Staff IC. You can compare your own org against that split with the free leadership ratio benchmark.
How big is the ELC Conference
Two editions held, 2025 and 2026, with 500+ attendees, 20+ speakers and an attendee rating of 4.8 of 5. The next edition runs in April 2027 with 600+ (target) attendees as the target.
Who was in the room at the 2025 edition:
| Attendee segment | Share |
|---|---|
| Engineering leadership | 43.0% |
| Senior ICs and tech leads | 22.6% |
| Founders and execs | 16.6% |
| Specialists | 8.9% |
| Product and delivery | 8.9% |
Newsletter reach and open rate
Leaders' Brief goes to 2,800+ subscribers and 74% of them open it. Subscribers and community members are two different populations; we count them separately and never sum them.
Mentoring engineering leaders since 2019
The mentoring practice behind the community has delivered 3,400+ unique sessions to 300 leaders in 17+ countries, rated 9.17/10 on average across 300+ reviews. The full mentoring dataset, including the mentee seniority mix and what leaders bring to sessions, is published at marian.coach/engineering-leadership-statistics.
Do companies hire engineering leaders from the community?
Yes, measurably: partner companies hire 2.7 engineering leaders a month from the community. For scale, a recruiter charges €15 to €25K per senior hire for one senior hire.
- Everpure: 3 Director+ leaders hired over 2 years.
- Ataccama: 4 senior hires including a VP Platform.
- Apify: partner for 3 years running.
How partnership works, including published prices, is on the partner page.
Cite this data
Free to quote with attribution, CC BY 4.0. Suggested format:
Engineering Leaders Community (2026). Engineering Leadership in Central Europe: Community Statistics. engineeringleaders.io. https://www.engineeringleaders.io/statistics/
Need a cut that is not on this page, or a quote for an article? Write to weare@engineeringleaders.io.
Methodology
Member counts come from the community registry, stage Active only, synced nightly; the exact figure is always published with its month. Meetup history comes from the public calendar at lu.ma/elc. The title census classifies recorded job titles by pattern, which is why it only covers the 40% of profiles that carry one. Conference composition comes from attendee data of the 2025 edition. Mentoring figures come from the session log and the collected reviews. Numbers round down, never up, and each carries its own verification date in the underlying registry.
Frequently asked questions
Where do these numbers come from?
From the systems the community runs on. Member figures are counted in the member registry, meetup history comes from the public Luma calendar at lu.ma/elc, conference composition from attendee data of the 2025 edition, and mentoring figures from the session log kept since 2019. Each number carries the date it was last verified.
Can I cite this page in an article or a report?
Yes, free with attribution under CC BY 4.0. Name the Engineering Leaders Community, add the year, link this page. A ready-made format is in the Cite this data section above.
How often is the page updated?
The member count republishes itself nightly from the registry. The rest is re-verified on a monthly to yearly cycle depending on the number, and the date at the top of the page moves whenever anything changes.
Is ELC the largest engineering leadership community in Central Europe?
We have not found a larger one. 3,200+ members across Prague, Brno, Bratislava and Kraków, counted from the registry rather than claimed. If you run a bigger one, write to weare@engineeringleaders.io and we will gladly compare notes.
Wondering how these numbers stack against other communities? The comparison page puts them next to LeadDev, CTO Craft, SFELC, alphalist, Rands and Tech Execs. And the numbers nobody in the region has yet are being collected by the CEE Engineering Leadership Benchmark.