Coaching for Engineers, by an Engineer
You are good at what you do. The systems you build work. But lately a different kind of problem keeps showing up. A career that looks right on paper and feels wrong in the chair. A decision that will not move. A flatness you cannot trace to any one component. You have run your usual debugging on it. Nothing reproduces.
I am Peter Plötner. I launched rockets from French Guiana, simulated the International Space Station for my thesis at NASA, and did a PhD in medical robotics in Tokyo. Then I trained as a coach (Wayfinder method, with Martha Beck's organization). Not because I was done with engineering, but because I found out the inner world runs on systems too. Nobody had ever handed me the manual.
Why engineers bounce off coaching
Most coaching language was not written for you. It is vague where you want mechanisms. It makes big claims without showing its data. And it often treats skepticism as a flaw to overcome instead of a sensible default. So engineers try one session, hear the word “journey” four times, and leave.
I keep two categories strictly apart: what peer-reviewed research actually supports, and what is a pattern that many practitioners converge on but research has not confirmed. Both can be useful. You will always know which one you are getting.
Requirements first, optimization later
The most expensive mistakes in engineering are made before anything is built: in the requirements. Lives work the same way. Most people optimize a life they never specified, so they get very efficient at the wrong things. I wrote about the method in Stop Optimizing Your Life. Start Specifying It. and about what happens when an old spec quietly stops fitting in The Thing You Built Stopped Fitting You. That is where the coaching starts. Not with productivity hacks. With the spec.
Instruments, not vibes
You would not fly without instruments, but most of us run our lives on dead reckoning. Your body is a sensor suite that reads situations before your conscious mind finishes the analysis. Learning to read it is a trainable skill, not a gift. Mine started at two pixels of resolution: tight chest, less tight chest. That was already enough to navigate by. In the longer coaching program we add a heart rate sensor, so we can see what is happening in your body instead of guessing about it.
What working together looks like
It begins with a free sixty-minute discovery session. A real session, not a pitch: bring one real question and test the work against it. After that, most engagements take one of two shapes: five focused sessions to question the requirements behind one decision or stuck point, or twenty sessions over ten months for a full redesign.
In the sessions I ask open questions, and I do not give advice or homework. That is a design choice, not modesty: the answers that actually move you are the ones you find yourself, and my job is to build a space where the true thing can be said out loud. I wrote about why in You Don't Prevent the Failure. You Make It Safe. Sessions are remote, worldwide, in English, German, or French.
Frequently asked questions
Is coaching just therapy with a different name?
No, and the difference matters. Therapy treats and heals, often by working through the past, and it is the right tool when something is hurt. Coaching is design work, pointed forward: what do you actually want, what is in the way, and what are you willing to do about it. If what you bring to a session needs therapy rather than coaching, I will say so plainly and point you toward the right kind of help.
I'm skeptical of coaching. What makes this different?
Skepticism is the right starting position, and you do not have to drop it. Two things are different here. First, the method is built the way engineers build: requirements before optimization, instruments before opinions, small iterations over grand plans. Second, the evidence is labeled honestly. On this site, 'research-backed' means peer-reviewed studies exist, and 'a pattern many teachers converge on' means exactly that and no more. The first session is free, so the cheapest way to test the claim is to run the experiment.
What actually happens in a session?
Sixty minutes on one real question of yours. I ask open questions and stay out of the way; you do the actual thinking, because answers I hand you would be guesses about your system from the outside. You leave with a written summary and the next steps you chose. No homework, because owing your coach a worksheet makes the next session start guarded instead of open.
Do I have to be comfortable talking about feelings?
No. We start where you are strong: the practical problem, the decision, the stuck point. The body and emotion side enters as data, not poetry. When I started this work, my own emotional resolution was two pixels: tight chest, less tight chest. That was enough to navigate by, and the resolution improves with practice the way any skill does.
How do I start?
Two ways. The Essential Self Diagnostic is fifteen questions and takes about sixty seconds; it gives you a first reading on which parts of your life still fit. Or book a free sixty-minute discovery session. The discovery session is a real session, not a sales call: bring one real question and see what the work feels like.
Run the cheap experiment first
Not quite you? See coaching for technical founders or burnout coaching for tech leaders.