Head of Engineering

Head of Engineering — goSTOPS
Location: Base Bengaluru (HSR) · Travel: To sites as new properties come online
Experience: Senior / leadership level, MEP & hospitality infrastructure background
Reports to: COO
About the Role
goSTOPS is building something that barely exists in India yet: an organised, branded, tech-run youth-travel hostel network, backed by Blume Ventures. Around 4,000 beds today and growing fast. We're taking one of the most unorganised corners of Indian hospitality and turning it into a real category — the kind of growth a large legacy hotel brand simply can't offer.
This role owns our physical infrastructure across every property — the actual machines that keep a hostel alive: HVAC and VRV, water heating, pool filtration, STP, pumps, electricals, and civil works. You're the SME, but not the textbook kind. A solution sized for a large commercial building won't survive a 30-room property in a hill town with one technician and a four-hour drive to the nearest spare part. We need grounded solutions that hold up on a Tuesday.
What You'd Run
Own MEP, cooling, STP, water systems and filtration performance across the entire network — set the standard and hold every property to it.
Spot problems before they escalate — the COO shouldn't be the one flagging that a chiller is struggling at a property; you should already have it handled.
Own the engineering cost line — R&M and utilities. Track how machine condition drives total cost of ownership, and carry the target to bring those costs down.
Build and audit MEP snag lists for every new site as it's signed — walk the property, assess it, and hand back a plan built for that specific building.
Stay close to the machines, the ground teams and daily reality, while steadily pulling the whole network toward the standard it should hit.
Travel to sites when it counts — new signings, recurring issues, or properties falling behind standard.
The Honest Part
This is a build role, not a maintain-what-exists role. You'll be creating standards and systems for a category that doesn't have an established playbook in India yet. Some days you're deep in data and cost models; other days you're on-site with one technician and a machine that's about to fail. The right person can move fluidly between both — comfortable owning outcomes without a fully staffed team or an established process to lean on everywhere.
You'll Fit If
You have strong hands-on experience in MEP, HVAC/VRV, cooling systems, STP, pool and water systems, and civil infrastructure — ideally across multiple sites.
You can design solutions for lean, real-world constraints, not just large-format textbook specs.
You're comfortable owning cost and P&L accountability for engineering, not just technical delivery.
You're logical, analytical, data-driven and process-oriented.
You're genuinely ambitious about building something from the ground up, not maintaining a legacy system.
You Won't Fit If
You want a role confined to headquarters with occasional site visits only.
You expect fully built playbooks and mature SOPs to already be in place.
You're not comfortable being hands-on with machines and ground teams when needed.
You'd rather escalate a problem than get ahead of it yourself.
Work Mode: Office-based at HSR, Bengaluru, with travel to sites as new properties come online or issues require it.
How this role is measured, quarter on quarter:
Engineering cost (R&M + utilities) trend, chiller/HVAC/STP uptime and failure rate, new-site snag list closure rate, and audit/compliance scores across properties.
To Apply: Email your CV to tarique.javed@gostops.com with subject line "Head of Engineering — [Your Name]"
"This role has specific requirements — please apply only if your background is a strong match."

Work arrangement
No