Head of Engineering – Design Team

Debrique Creative Labs Pvt. Ltd. – Modulus Housing

Location: Chennai, IITM Research Park | Department: Engineering & Design

Qualification:

M.Tech / M.E. – Structural Engineering | Experience: 12+ Years | Type: Full-Time, In office

The Mandate

"Building the Machine that Builds the Buildings." You are not just a Head of Engineering — you are the architect of our Right to Win.

At Modulus Housing, we are not building projects — we are building a Product Platform. Our mission is to move construction from the field to the factory, transforming how humanity creates shelter. As the Head of Engineering, you will lead the transition from traditional, site-heavy civil engineering to a high- precision, productised construction model — bridging the gap between IS-code-compliant structural engineering and automotive-grade manufacturing precision.

Your core mandate: develop our prefab technology stack (PEB, LGSF, Modular, and Foldable systems) into a scalable, highly profitable product reality that wins on cost, speed, and quality.

Role in the Team

• Report directly to the CTO / Founder and serve as the single point of technical leadership across all engineering and design functions — structural design, BIM, estimating, and site execution interfaces.

• Own and lead a multidisciplinary engineering design team — Lead Engineers, BIM Lead, Sr. Structural Designers, and Detailers — setting technical standards, design culture, and delivery

accountability across all active projects.

• Act as the primary technical interface with IIT Madras (IITM) for design validation, structural vetting, and cutting-edge R&D; collaboration on next-generation modular building systems.

• Partner with procurement, factory, and site execution teams to drive the BIM-to-Factory pipeline

— ensuring every design is translated into fabrication-ready, erection-ready, and site-executable outputs.

• Collaborate with sales, estimation, and contracts teams to provide technical authority in client

engagements, bid clarifications, and value engineering reviews.

• Drive cross-functional initiatives in DFMA, PFMEA, and Lean Construction — building engineering systems that reduce on-site skill dependency and increase factory-completion percentages toward 99%.

Key Responsibilities

1. Productisation & Platform Development

• Lead the transition from a project mindset to a product platform mindset — developing standardised, reusable, scalable modular building systems across PEB, LGSF, modular, and foldable/rapid-deploy structures.

• Apply First-Principles Thinking to ruthlessly optimise structural costs — engineering out waste,

reducing bespoke elements, and enabling the business to win more projects at stronger margins

without compromising structural safety.

• Drive the Factory-First (IC) strategy — increasing the percentage of construction work completed

in the factory to 99%, minimising on-site skill requirements and rework.





• Own the transition of proven prototypes to mass-produced structural systems — taking concepts

from single units to scalable, geography-agnostic deployment platforms.

2. Engineering Excellence & Quality Systems

• Develop engineering processes that measure building quality in millimetres, not centimetres implementing PFMEA (Process Failure Mode & Effect Analysis) into the structural design phase

to eliminate failure modes before factory release.

• Oversee the implementation of DFMA (Design for Manufacturing and Assembly) principles ensuring every component is designed to snap together intuitively on-site with zero rework and

minimum-skill assembly.

• Establish a robust digital thread using BIM and ISO 19650 standards — automating the flow from

design intent through to the fabrication shop floor.

• Ensure all structural designs comply with IS 800, IS 456, IS 875, IS 1893, and applicable codes,

while being optimised for factory fabrication tolerances and modular assembly precision.

3. Service Profitability & Commercial Engineering

• Own the financial health of current service projects — ensuring Design-to-Cost is a core engineering discipline, identifying high-cost structural bottlenecks in bespoke projects, and engineering them out to protect and expand project margins.

• Create the technical framework for parallel project execution — enabling multiple service

projects to run simultaneously without a linear increase in engineering overhead, growing profit

per project through standardised efficiency.

• Collaborate with the estimation team to validate structural BOMs and BOQs, ensuring design

decisions directly support project profitability and procurement accuracy.

4. Customer-Centric & Behavioural Engineering

• Design beyond codes — develop building systems that prioritise the User Journey, from intuitive

assembly (the 'Lego' experience) to the long-term physical and mental well-being of the end

occupant.

• Translate complex user behaviours and customer feedback into technical structural requirements

— embedding customer-centricity into the engineering design process from concept through to

delivery.

• Apply knowledge of modern building materials — composite panels, specialised coatings, high-

tensile steel — to optimise foldable and modular systems for mobility, deployability, and long- term performance.

5. Leadership, Mentorship & Innovation Culture

• Manage and mentor a multidisciplinary engineering team — Lead Engineers, BIM Lead, Sr.

Structural Designers, and Detailers — fostering a high-agency culture where 'Nothing is someone else's problem.'





• Encourage First-Principles Innovation — challenge the team to rethink traditional RCC and steel

constraints and develop revolutionary rapid-deploy and foldable structural systems.

• Build scalable engineering SOPs, design review frameworks, and quality checklists that standardise output quality across all team members and project types.

• Drive continuous learning and R&D; culture within the team — staying ahead of advances in

modular construction, material science, and industrialised building technology.

Required Qualifications

Education

• Master's degree (M.Tech / M.E.) in Structural Engineering — mandatory. Preference for IIT / NIT

graduates.

• Additional qualifications in DFMA, Lean Construction, Agile Engineering, or Product

Management are a strong advantage.

Technical Skills & Experience

• 12+ years of experience in structural/construction engineering, with at least 3–5 years in a senior

leadership role overseeing multidisciplinary engineering teams.

• Proven track record in designing and scaling PEB, LGSF, and modular / industrialised building

systems — from concept through to mass-produced, multi-geography deployment.

• Deep expertise in IS codes — IS 800, IS 456, IS 875, IS 1893 — and strong understanding of

structural system behaviour, connection design, and fabrication tolerances.

• Expert proficiency in STAAD Pro, ETABS, and Revit / BIM tools — with clear understanding of how these integrate with manufacturing ERPs and BIM-to-factory digital pipelines.

• Hands-on experience implementing DFMA and PFMEA methodologies in a construction or prefab/modular manufacturing context.

• 3–5 years of experience in a modular, prop-tech, or startup engineering environment — where

you successfully translated user behaviours and customer feedback into scalable structural

solutions.

• Strong knowledge of modern building materials: composite panels, high-tensile steel, specialised

coatings, and structural systems for foldable or rapid-deploy applications.

• Familiarity with Lean Construction, Agile engineering methodologies, and advanced procurement

integration.

Behavioural DNA & Mindset

• First-Principles Thinker — you don't do things because 'that's how it's always been done.' You

break problems down to their fundamental physics and rebuild from there.

• Product Mindset — you view a building as a high-performance machine, not just a static structure. You design for the user, not just the code.

• High Agency — you see a bottleneck in the factory or on site and you own the solution,

regardless of your job title.

• Startup DNA — scrappy, intense, and comfortable building systems from scratch in environments with limited legacy infrastructure.

• Scale Thinking — you have taken concepts from single prototypes to mass-produced, geography-agnostic structural systems.

• Driven by Purpose — motivated by the vision of making high-quality, sustainable, rapidly deployable housing accessible to all of humanity.

📌 Senior Design Team Lead (Chennai)
🏢 Modulus Housing
📍 Chennai