Senior Industrial Designer at Kimbal… · New Delhi

About Kimbal

Kimbal is building the infrastructure layer for India’s energy transition. We design, manufacture, and deploy end-to-end smart metering solutions — smart meters, K-Mesh communication networks, and HES platforms — that serve utilities, discoms, and government bodies at scale. Ours is a B2B and B2G business operating at the intersection of hardware, embedded systems, and data intelligence.

We are not a consumer electronics company. We build mission-critical infrastructure that runs for 15+ years in the field, often in extreme conditions, touching millions of energy consumers. We hold form, function, and user experience to the same standard. We have global ambitions and we are building the team to match.

Why this role exists

Our mechanical and electronics teams define the functional skeleton of every product. Your job is to take that skeleton and design something that is field-proven, manufacturable at cost, intuitive for every person who interacts with it — from the assembly line worker to the utility vigilance officer — and carries the Kimbal design language forward into every market we enter.

The Context

A Kimbal smart meter is not a consumer device. It sits outside the home, untouched for months, yet it is handled by at least seven distinct user archetypes across its operational life. Reliability, manufacturability, and tamper-resistance are non-negotiable. But a product that is hard to install, impossible to read in the field, or costly to produce at scale is a product that fails commercially.

We work with real constraints: relay shielding against magnet tamper attacks requires air gaps and metal shields. High-voltage variants up to 35kW impose specific PCB and terminal footprint requirements. Unit economics at high volumes mean the enclosure, finish, and assembly method must all be optimised for cost. ID at Kimbal is a discipline, not decoration.

What You’ll Own

1. Product Design & Conceptualisation

• Receive mechanical skeleton layouts and PCB constraint envelopes from the engineering team and develop these into complete industrial design concepts.
• Own the product from concept sketch to production-ready design intent, including surface modelling, material selection, finish specification, and colour language.
• Design for the full lifecycle: assembly, packaging, logistics handling, field installation, periodic inspection, and end-of-life.
• Maintain rigorous awareness of unit manufacturing cost targets. Every design decision has a cost implication at volume; you are expected to own that trade-off.

2. User Research & Ergonomics — All Seven Archetypes

• Map, study, and design for every user who touches the meter across its life:

• Factory assemblers: ergonomics of assembly, snap-fit vs screw-mount, tool access.

• Material handling & logistics teams: drop-resistance, stackability, grip points, packaging.

• Warehouse unloading crews: visibility of serial/label, orientation cues.

• Field installers: single-handed installation, cover removal, terminal access, wire routing.

• Meter readers: display legibility in sunlight, cover seal condition, tamper seal visibility.

• Vigilance officers: tamper evidence indicators, physical inspection access points.

• End consumers: display readability, basic interaction without instruction.

• Document insights from field visits and user research; translate these directly into design decisions that can be defended in engineering reviews.

3. Competitive Intelligence & Benchmarking

• Maintain a living competitive analysis of domestic and international smart meter designs: form factor, ergonomics, material quality, IP and IK ratings, tamper-resistance approaches.
• Identify design white spaces and differentiation opportunities relevant to specific utility categories, state mandates, AMISP requirements, and large customer specifications.
• Brief leadership on design trends in adjacent industries — industrial IoT, electrical equipment, infrastructure hardware — that are relevant to Kimbal’s product roadmap.

4. Technical Constraint Integration

• Work directly with mechanical and electronics engineers to understand and design around hard constraints: relay shielding geometry, air gap requirements, EMC enclosure considerations, terminal block layouts, PCB thermal zones, and sealing requirements.
• Ensure all designs meet applicable standards for IP rating, IK rating, UV resistance, and dimensional compliance with utility specifications.
• Drive Design for Manufacturability (DFM) and Design for Assembly (DFA) reviews in collaboration with the manufacturing team. Cost and yield are part of your scorecard.

5. Kimbal Design Language — Products

• Establish and document the industrial design language for Kimbal’s hardware portfolio: form vocabulary, surface treatment, colour system, typography on hardware, and iconography.
• Ensure visual and tactile consistency across the smart meter, K-Mesh communication nodes, and peripheral hardware as the portfolio scales.
• Collaborate with the UI/UX and brand design teams to ensure the physical and digital design languages are coherent with each other.

What You Bring

Non-Negotiable

• 5–8 years of professional industrial design experience, with a portfolio that includes at least one manufactured hardware product that went through a full production cycle.
• Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Mechanical Engineering with a design focus, or equivalent demonstrated expertise.
• Expert proficiency in 3D CAD and surface modelling: SolidWorks, Rhino, Alias, or equivalent. Ability to produce design intent models that the mechanical team can work from directly.
• Working knowledge of injection moulding, sheet metal fabrication, DFM principles, and production tooling implications.
• Ability to read and interpret mechanical drawings, PCB layout overviews, and assembly BOMs.
• Comfort operating in a technically demanding, engineering-first environment where design authority must be earned through rigorous reasoning.

Strong Preference

• Experience designing ruggedised or field-deployed equipment: industrial enclosures, electrical equipment, IoT hardware, or infrastructure devices.
• Familiarity with IP/IK ratings, IEC 62052/62053 standards, tamper-detection mechanisms in utility metering, or similar regulated product categories.
• Prior exposure to B2B or B2G product design contexts where the end user is a field technician, not a consumer.
• Experience running user research in non-consumer contexts: factory floors, field environments, or utility operations.

What Success Looks Like in Year One

• A complete ID concept for the next-generation smart meter that the mechanical team can build their detailed design from, with DFM sign-off achieved.
• A documented Kimbal Hardware Design Language guide covering the full product portfolio.
• A competitive benchmarking library that is actively referenced in product planning.
• Zero installation or assembly issues in field pilots attributable to ID decisions.

Location

• Ideally, we would prefer a candidate based in NCR.
• We are also open to remote talent (in case of exceptional candidates), who are willing to travel to Delhi frequently, as needed.