Design & Research Leadership
I turn design into a product partner that drives growth.
I’m Nishant Kaku, Director of Design & Research at Housing.com, a proptech platform with 12M+ monthly users. Before that, I led design at Cashfree Payments and Domino’s India. Open to Head of Design and Design Director roles at product-led consumer and B2B platforms.
20 years in design
Team of 7, reporting to the CPO
Executive MBA, ISB
Gurugram, open to relocation
Work
He brought a wealth of experience, a passion for the design craft and a real empathetic style of leadership, combined with a pragmatic and practical approach to getting stuff done!
Simon Hope · CPO, Housing.com & REA Group
How I lead
Four things I do in every team.
01
Make design a product partner
Moved Housing design from a service model to product co-ownership, working directly with the CPO. Designers are accountable for outcomes and shape what gets built.
02
Build the team
Grew Jubilant’s design team from 1 to 15. At Housing, set up design critiques and a competency framework that set the quality bar.
03
Put research into decisions
Built research into Housing’s design team. A 140-renter survey and buyer research reshaped the new-projects roadmap.
04
Lead as a player-coach
I set Housing’s design language and built Bricks myself, and took Houzy, a conversational AI search product, from concept to beta. At Jubilant, I designed Popeyes online ordering with one junior designer.
Experience
The short version.
2025 NOW
Housing.com · Director, Design & Research
+40K leads a month
2022 – 25
Cashfree Payments · Associate Director, UX
17% signup → KYC lift
2020 – 22
Jubilant FoodWorks · Lead Manager, UX
₹20 Cr incremental revenue
2014 – 20
Info Edge (99acres, Shiksha) · Principal Designer, UX
150% YoY ↑ registrations
2005 – 14
India Today · Paytm · Brentwoods
Art direction and visual design
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