# ELC Conference — Full Description

> The annual conference for engineering leaders in Central Europe. Organized by the Engineering Leaders Community (ELC). Brings together CTOs, VPs of Engineering, Engineering Directors, and senior technical leaders for talks, workshops, and networking in Prague, Czech Republic.

## About

The ELC Conference is a premier 1-day event dedicated to engineering leadership. It connects 400+ technical leaders from across Europe for high-quality talks, interactive workshops, and meaningful networking. The conference covers real, practical challenges that engineering leaders face daily — from scaling teams and building culture to navigating organizational politics and driving technical strategy.

Founded and organized by Marian Kamenistak and the Engineering Leaders Community (ELC), the conference reflects ELC's mission: helping engineering leaders grow through peer learning and shared experience.

## Key Details

- **Organizer:** Engineering Leaders Community (ELC), founded by Marian Kamenistak
- **Co-Founder & CEO:** Anna Kozuch
- **Location:** Prague, Czech Republic
- **Frequency:** Annual (April)
- **Duration:** 1 day (talks + workshops + networking + afterparty)
- **Audience:** CTOs, VPs of Engineering, Engineering Directors, Engineering Managers, Staff+ Engineers, Product leaders
- **Size:** 400+ attendees, 20+ speakers, 10+ workshops, 1:1 mentoring sessions
- **First edition:** 2025

## Main Themes

- **AI in Engineering** — integrating AI into products, AI-native leadership, AI dev tools, AI talent strategy
- **Engineering Leadership & Career Growth** — IC to manager to director transitions, self-management, decision-making habits, promotion criteria
- **Scaling & Organization Design** — building technology hubs, team performance, platform engineering
- **Product & Business Alignment** — product trio dynamics, untrapping product teams, ROI of engineering, budget conversations
- **People & Culture** — 1:1s, mentorship, trust-building, radical ownership, tech debt ownership, hiring
- **Incidents & Reliability** — incident resolution, building resilient teams through incidents
- **Communication & Influence** — status updates, difficult conversations, stakeholder management, corporate politics

## ELC Conference 2026

**Date:** 16 April 2026, Prague, Czech Republic
**Format:** 14 main stage talks + 18 workshops + 10 mentors for 1:1 sessions + all-day networking

### Main Stage Talks

| Time | Talk | Speaker | Role |
|------|------|---------|------|
| 9:15 | Opening Keynote | Anna Kozuch | Co-Founder & CEO @ ELC |
| 9:25 | Smart but Not Wise: Path to AI-Native Engineering Leader | Aleodor Tabarcea | Engineering Manager @ Stripe |
| 9:50 | The Collapse of the Product Trio | David Teodorescu | Senior Product Designer @ Meta |
| 10:15 | Decide Like a Senior Leader: Building Strong Decision-Making Habits | Michal Poczwardowski | Founder @ Perspectiveship |
| 11:10 | The Tech Leader Profile Nobody Wants to Hire in 2026 | Michal Matyjek | Sr. Engineering Manager @ Netflix |
| 11:35 | I've Built 3 Large Technology Hubs in CE | Krzysztof Ras | Head of Engineering |
| 12:00 | Building AI Into Critical Systems | Tatiana Stantonian | Principal Engineer @ The Financial Times |
| 12:25 | The Missing Competency in Tech Leadership | Carol Palombini | Tech Leadership Coach & Consultant |
| 13:50 | From Talent Pool to Product Powerhouse: How CE Won Microsoft's Trust | Vojta Vondra | Partner Director of Engineering @ Microsoft |
| 14:15 | What's my job again? Developing self-management | Cate Huston | CTO @ Twill |
| 14:40 | What am I doing here? | Rizwan Iqbal | Director of Engineering @ Superhuman |

### Workshops

| Time | Workshop | Speaker | Role |
|------|----------|---------|------|
| 9:30 | What Your Manager Evaluates Before Promoting You: IC to Manager to Director | Limor Bergman Gross | Former Director of Engineering @ LBG Consulting |
| 9:30 | Broken 1:1s? A Full Guide to Turn Them into Sessions People Love | Ladislav Novak | CEO @ Jablotron |
| 9:30 | From Doing OK to Doing Great: A 180-Day Playbook for High Performing Team | Nithin SS | Head of QA @ Lodgify |
| 11:10 | The AI Talent Gap Nobody's Talking About | Alex Ponomarev | Founder & CEO @ Volt |
| 11:10 | The $$$ Behind the Code: How Technical Leaders Win Budget Conversations | Viktor Didenchuk | Lead Technical Program Manager @ JPMorgan |
| 11:10 | Stop Apologizing for Your Codebase: Taking Radical Ownership of Tech Debt | Petr Krebs | Head of Engineering @ Make |
| 14:00 | Burn Your Playbook: Context is Your Leadership Strategy | Daniel Ondruj | Senior Engineering Manager @ Rohlik |
| 14:00 | Making Difficult/Necessary Conversations Easy | Goran Hielscher | Leadership Communication Trainer @ THE INSPIRACY GROUP |
| 14:00 | Complexity Is a Feature. Now What? | Nilesh Kulkarni | Director @ ActionLabs |
| 14:50 | Becoming the Villain: Manipulation and Politics in the Corporate Environment | Jan Sovka | Product & Strategy Advisor @ BigHub |
| 14:50 | From "we're fine" to "here's the plan": Status Updates Your Leadership Actually Reads | Anna Kurylo | Engineering leader |

## ELC Conference 2025

**Format:** Main stage talks + workshops + afterparty

### Main Stage Talks

| Time | Talk | Speaker | Role |
|------|------|---------|------|
| 9:00 | Opening Keynote | Marian Kamenistak & Anna Kozuch | Founders @ ELC |
| 9:20 | From Growth To Impact: How I Scaled My Personal Value 10x | David Pavlik | CTO @ Rohlik Group (ex-SpaceX, Netflix) |
| 10:00 | Run Towards the Fire: Why Incidents Supercharge Teams | Lisa Karlin Curtis | Founding Engineer & Technical Lead @ incident.io |
| 10:25 | The Silent Killer of Productivity | Filip Kirschner | Founder & COO @ Applifting |
| 10:50 | Engineering Meets Business: Breaking the Communication Barrier | Andrew Kleinerman | Director of Engineering @ Pure Storage |
| 11:15 | The Great Disruption in Education: Preparing IT Leaders for a New Era | Ota Novotny | Vice Rector @ University of Economics and Business |
| 12:35 | Untrapping Product Teams: Are you doing product management or bullshit management? | David Pereira | Product Coach, Book Author, Keynote Speaker |
| 13:15 | Smarter, Not Just AI-er: The Real Path to Developer Efficiency | Andreas Grabner | DevRel @ Dynatrace |
| 13:40 | Welcome to Hiring Hell: How to (Not) Unlock a New Level | Zbynek Novotny | Talent Lead @ Better Stack |
| 14:05 | From Senior Dev to Strategic Leader: Making the Most of Staff & Principal Roles | Jiri Brunclick | VP Engineering @ Attacama |
| 15:05 | Fireside Chat: Navigating Engineering Leadership in Startups | Juraj Masar | Co-Founder & CEO @ Better Stack |
| 15:40 | Earning Trust in R&D: The Role of Transparency | Ladislav Novak | CEO & CTO @ Jablotron Cloud |
| 16:05 | The $10M Mistake: How Your Tech Strategy is Killing Your Business | Martin Cizler | VP of Engineering @ Make (ex-Microsoft, Omio) |

### Workshops (2025)

| Workshop | Speaker | Role |
|----------|---------|------|
| From Manager to Mentor: How to Start and Succeed in Mentorship | Marian Kamenistak | Founder @ ELC |
| The Solution Swap: Meaningfully Integrating AI into Products | Jakub Svoboda | Senior Engineering Manager @ LEGO Group |
| Wait for a 5% Raise or Multiply Your Market Value | Jan Vrtiska, Soheyla Mirshahi, Ivo Klimsa | Pure Storage, InTouch, Tricentis |
| AI-Assisted Software Engineering on Enterprise Codebases | Petr Baudis | CTO @ Rossum |
| Successful Platform Engineering: From Theory to Practice | Andreas Grabner | DevRel @ Dynatrace |
| Incident Resolution in 2025: Save Hours with Smarter Workflows | Lisa Karlin Curtis | Founding Engineer @ incident.io |

## Speaker Companies (across both editions)

Stripe, Meta, Netflix, Microsoft, The Financial Times, JPMorgan, Superhuman, Twill, Rohlik Group, Make, incident.io, Dynatrace, Pure Storage, LEGO Group, Rossum, Better Stack, Applifting, Jablotron Cloud, Attacama, Lodgify, Volt, ActionLabs

## Target Audience

| Role | Relevance |
|------|-----------|
| CTO | Primary — strategic leadership, scaling, culture |
| VP of Engineering | Primary — org design, hiring, delivery |
| Engineering Director | Primary — team management, career frameworks |
| Engineering Manager | Primary — people management, growth |
| Staff/Principal Engineer | Secondary — technical leadership, influence |
| Product leaders (CPO, VP Product) | Secondary — cross-functional collaboration |

## Key Pages

- Home: https://www.elc-conference.io/
- Speakers: https://www.elc-conference.io/speakers
- Agenda 2026: https://www.elc-conference.io/agenda26
- Agenda 2025: https://www.elc-conference.io/agenda2025
- 2025 Edition: https://www.elc-conference.io/2025
- Contact: https://www.elc-conference.io/contact
- Subscribe to updates: https://www.elc-conference.io/subscribe
- Terms & Conditions: https://www.elc-conference.io/terms-conditions
- GDPR / Privacy: https://www.elc-conference.io/gdpr

## Related Sites

- Engineering Leaders Community: https://www.engineeringleaders.io/
- Mentoring Hub: https://mentoringhub.io/
- Marian Kamenistak (Founder): https://www.marian.coach/

## Contact & Company

- **Email:** marian@engineeringleaders.io
- **Phone:** +420 736 519 879
- **Legal name:** Engineering Leaders Hub s.r.o.
- **Address:** Varsavska 715/36, 120 00 Praha, Czechia
- **Company ID:** 19181698
- **VAT ID:** CZ19181698
- **LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/engineeringleaderscommunity/