Estimation & Budgeting Engineer | Vantrock Real Assets Private Limited | Mumbai A contractor's estimator prices work he hopes to win. A developer's estimator prices a decision that cannot be unwound. Own the number from land feasibility to final account, on a platform breaking ground on its first 2 million sq ft in January 2027. A cost-ownership role, not bill checking.

ABOUT VANTROCK

Vantrock is an independent real assets platform. Real assets only. We start where we know the ground: logistics, warehousing and industrial parks, across the full chain, from first mile and last mile to city-centre, dark-store and self-storage formats. From there, only as each is delivered: industrial plots, suburban campuses and GCC space, strata offices, data centres and senior living.

Founded by Anshul Singhal, Founder & CEO, who has built three institutional platforms from zero and is building the fourth on his own capital. 52 million sq ft delivered (32 million as developer, 20 million as contractor), over 2,000 acres acquired, more than 200 buildings, two SEBI Category II funds run to a successful close, India's first domestic warehousing AIF, and India's largest industrial real estate exit. Delivered across the founder's three prior platforms.

The team is deliberately small and stays small, a few dozen people across development, leasing, investments, finance and capital formation, every one of them a co-builder with a real stake in what the platform becomes. We hire number twos who want to become number one.

THE SEAT

Cost sits inside the development business as its own discipline, and it is one seat, alongside the civil and MEP specialists, the architect, the planning engineers, procurement and leasing. Reports to the Chief Executive Officer, Development Business, with nobody between you and the person who signs the sanction.

No direct reports at present: the team follows the volume, and the standard is set first. Cost estimation and budget control, land feasibility to final account, on Grade A warehouses, logistics parks and industrial parks in PEB and RCC. 10-14 years. Mumbai, with project and site travel.

Team structure, reporting lines, seat titles and the hiring entity described here reflect the current plan and may change as the platform builds out. Compensation is confirmed in the offer.

WHY THIS ROLE EXISTS The land is bought at the Class 5 number. The board sanctions at the Class 4 number. The build-to-suit rent is quoted against the Class 3 number, and a tenant holds us to it for ten years. An estimate wrong at the front is a return wrong from the day the cheque cleared. That is why the number stays inside rather than at a consultancy.

Ground breaks on the first 2 million sq ft in January 2027, with 10 million behind it across four cities, and there is no cost desk in the building. Every capital decision, land bid, build-to-suit pricing, tender approval, variation, rests on this desk. Estimates are built from first principles, defensible line by line, and accurate enough that the budget set at sanction is the budget the project lands on.

It is a builder's seat rather than a checker's. If your record is tenders bid rather than budgets sanctioned and landed, this is the wrong side of the table.

THE STANDARD

Four things, and accuracy across them is how this role is judged. TAKE-OFF, quantities measured from drawings, models and BOQ. RATE,



first-principle build-ups against live market rates. BUDGET, the sanction estimate and stage-gate cost control. RECONCILIATION, budget against committed against actual, to final account.

The standard is written down rather than implied: sanction to final account within 5 per cent on scope delivered as sanctioned, a Class 5 land number inside 72 hours of an area statement, and the benchmark library carrying every awarded package within thirty days of award.

You own the full estimate hierarchy, Class 5 at land feasibility through Class 1 on awarded contracts, each with a declared basis and accuracy band, from plus or minus 25 to 30 per cent down to 2, every re-estimate reconciling to the class before it.

WHAT YOU WILL OWN

PRE-CONSTRUCTION ESTIMATING, QUANTITIES AND RATES. The development cost model at land stage, at deal speed: site development, external infrastructure, statutory and authority charges, contingency. Concept and elemental estimates, so design and leasing can trade specification against price before drawings freeze.

Take-off from AutoCAD, Revit and GFC drawings to a documented measurement standard, covering earthwork, RCC, PEB tonnage, flooring, roofing and cladding, dock equipment, MEP and external works. First-principle rate build-ups of material, labour, plant, wastage and P&OH;, cross-checked against DSR and state SOR, market rates and our own awarded rates.

BUDGET CONTROL, BENCHMARKING AND VALUE ENGINEERING. The sanction estimate converted into the cost-control budget, package by package, and a clean baseline handed to procurement and planning. Budget against committed against forecast, and a live anticipated final cost. A benchmark library, per-sft by asset type, elemental cost ratios and awarded rates by region, so every estimate starts from evidence rather than a guess. Structured VE with design and procurement, savings tracked to final account.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

- 10-14 years in estimation, budgeting or cost management on warehousing, logistics, industrial or comparable Grade A projects.
- A record on paper: the projects you estimated, the built-up area, the class of estimate, your sanction number, the final account, and the gap between them.
- Personal take-off and rate build-up work rather than supervision of it, tested in a supervised practical, and land costing at deal speed with a per-sft basis you can defend and source.
- Budget against committed against forecast as a live discipline, with a view on when to re-baseline, and variation pricing before approval with the evidence that made it hold.
- CostX, Planswift or Bluebeam or equivalent, AutoCAD and Revit, IS 1200 practice, Power BI on live cost data, advanced Excel for cost models and agile BOQ, and fluent reading of civil, PEB and MEP drawings and contract conditions.
- B.E. or B.Tech in Civil Engineering, or equivalent. MRICS, AIQS or NICMAR Quantity Surveying and Cost Management is a distinct advantage, and no qualification substitutes for having priced a warehouse shell yourself. Based in Mumbai,



or relocating before joining.

WHAT THIS ROLE IS NOT

Not the planning engineer's seat: the programme sits with planning, and you own the money. Not a billing seat: running bills are checked in Finance and Accounts, and this desk sets the baseline they are checked against. Not a quantity surveying consultant's seat: we are not buying measurement capacity, we are keeping the committed number inside.

COMPENSATION

Vantrock benchmarks compensation against the upper quartile for the role and market, weighted toward equity for candidates who want to build with us long-term. We discuss specific numbers in the first conversation rather than anchoring either side prematurely. Wealth creation is part of the engine, not only the salary: performance-linked bonuses and ESOP-linked incentives.

CULTURAL FIT

We're building Vantrock over a decade, not a funding cycle. We're looking for people who treat technology as the default answer rather than a supplement, who want to be co-builders of the platform rather than employees executing instructions, and who are comfortable saying "I don't know" and "I was wrong." If you want a defined role with defined edges, this isn't the right seat. If you want to help build an institution from zero, it might be.

Outsource first, then automate, then hire. AI proficiency and partner command are standing requirements in every Vantrock seat: you work fluently with AI tools, you build on the platform's dashboards, and you command the consultants who execute the measurement work rather than deferring to them. The committed number stays ours, and a supervised AI Proficiency Test is part of the process at every level.

Cost data lives in one system of record rather than a personal cost book that leaves when you do, and bad news travels first: an overrun seen at 40 per cent design is a specification conversation, the same overrun at the final account is a loss.

HOW WE WILL ASSESS

One email within two working days, with two links: six fixed questions by AI interview, about forty minutes, read before the CV, and the AI Proficiency Test. Then the Estimate Sheet conversation with the CEO, Development Business. Then a three-hour supervised practical: a partial drawing set with an area statement and a specification, errors and omissions planted in it, from which you produce a take-off, a rate build-up and a Class 3 number with its declared band.

Then a technical panel, a conversation with the Chief Financial Officer, and two references.

TO APPLY

Write to [email protected], subject line "Estimation & Budgeting Engineer - [your name]". Attach your CV, which is mandatory: a LinkedIn profile alone is not an application.

Attach your Estimate Sheet: one row per project, with asset type and location, built-up area, the class of estimate, your sanction number, the final account, the variance, and your own part in it. Format on request, and every row will be discussed. Tell us your notice period.

And write one short paragraph: a variation you priced, or a contingency you set, that you were later proved wrong about, and what you changed because of it. That paragraph matters more than the CV.

None of this will suit everyone, and it is not meant to. If it is your seat, write to us.

We don't hire roles. We build the platform. · Ownership, not employment. · Builders hire builders.

Founder & CEO, Vantrock

📌 Estimation & Budgeting Engineer (Mumbai)
🏢 Vantrock
📍 Mumbai