What are the design-led companies in India that you work (or would want to work) at and why?

http://cleartrip.com  it is one of the best companies to work for any designer. 3 major things which sets them apart from others. 1. Design first approach (most of the projects starts from design desk) 2. Product innovation (Most of the industry first ideas come from here & everybody else copies example : checkout flow toggle button) 3. Customer centric design (nobody takes customer feedback more seriously) the work culture is very minimal. no pushy deadlines always the quality over quantity and delivery. To get a sense of how they work check out their blog : http://blog.cleartrip.com/

http://brainstarsindia.com/ not a veteran in design centred culture but definitely on the way :)   Brilliant handshake between design and research teams. Design wing is considered in a key role in almost every thing including New Products, Research , Development, Communication and in organization culture. The focus on co-creation and collaboration which leads to and effective innovation cycle. You can see hardcore researchers working together with artists and teachers on the same floor. Being an education organization in India [ a community with nearly no taste for design atleast in India] they have recognized the value of design and are doing some great stuff to increase it's awareness and acceptance. Work culture wise it's a goal based work culture where everyone decides there own goals and measures to work towards it. The upper management makes sure that the people understand the same and are motivated. One of the most practical approach i have personally seen till date.

We (PaperKite - http://www.paperkite.in) are a startup-centric, design-led, user experience research company with the key focus on working with and mentoring early stage entrepreneurs who are (working on) building disruptive products & technology. We are a team of 3 ex-NID, 1 ex-Google & 1 ex-UCL and bring about professional experience from architecture, graphic design, industrial design, digital humanities, information systems/design, media, social media, advertising, HMI to the table. Culturally, we understand and encourage the importance of coffee breaks, beer sessions, hangouts & all-over-the-place fun while at work - so the next time you visit in Delhi and see someone watching Game of Thrones on their desk on a Monday afternoon, drop by and say hi :) Most importantly, we believe in taking complete ownership of products & projects and follow no hierarchies within our team. We believe in a goal-driven approach for solving UX needs and take the lean philosophy in its highest regard.

I joined http://Housing.com in March this year. So, it's been roughly over two months and I'm loving it. To give a little bit of background, I moved to Mumbai from Bangalore -- something that most under the situation don't favor doing -- will talk about it shortly. Prior to Housing, I was worked at FusionCharts for about a year and found it a good time to move on. Why did I move from FusionCharts? I had this happy realisation to work and learn to do something which I can directly relate to - Living. Housing fits the company spot on. More on that in a separate post. I am putting things in bullet points (as, I personally don't like to read/ skim through paras) The team here comes from a very diverse background which enriches our day to day work culture Everyone is very eager to learn - we have people who, individually, excel at a particular skill set and everyone in the team looks up to that person for learning more and include in their daily workflow We hire people from everywhere. Doesn't matter if you've done design school or not (I've not done design school) and we look forward to learning from them. In terms of involvement, we focus on design and experience foremost. We know that if we can make people happy by using our products, we can take care of the rest. Pure startup culture. This is one thing that I've missed a lot during my stay at FusionCharts (there's nothing wrong about it - it's an Enterprise company that's been in the market for 11+ years). It's gives me an adrenaline rush to just work with everything topsy turvy, deadlines and arguments. I also got to meet many people here whom I've known for years on Twitter/ Facebook. I won't speak on about something bold at this point of time but can definitely see this place, and the people becoming my family. ================================== A version from one year ago: Speaking from pure personal experience and only about product companies, not services or consultancy. I worked at http://Fab.com(not fabindia, not fab furnish but just http://Fab.com) as their UX designer for about 1.5 years. It's not an Indian company but the design and engineering division is based out of Pune. It's was one of those companies that drive design first culture with us communicating with the CEO upfront for every design decision. The very well known Veerle Pieters is a design partner so we got good learnings from her to say the least. The designs that we shipped out made us grab Webby, regularly featured app on app store. When I moved on to join FusionCharts, I knew this was the place I was dying to work at. The insane amount of encouragement you have here to be design driven from core up and the possibilities we get with over half a million developers in data visualization is endless. I'm not marketing my company here but I feel happy to be a part of this movement where along with current design leaders from India like Zomato and Cleartrip we can literally put a mark out there.

“I wish we were live in one more city.” “Why though? Will it help your design in any way?” “Obviously! My grid of 6 will be complete with 12 cities instead of 11.” “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s make another city live! Any city preferences?” Excerpts from a conversation between me and , the 24 year old CEO of http://housing.com. Two years ago, Housing started off simply based on one thought: “We wanted something better. So we built it.” This philosophy is evident across each team at Housing, including the Design team.  Housing as an organisation is structured in a way such that members from all teams support and appreciate good design. When I joined the team last August, there was no differentiation between designers and developers. CoffeeScript, LESS, HAML, Photoshop and Illustrator- they all walked hand in hand. So, how’s life for designers at Housing you ask? Here goes. Those ‘Eureka’ moments: By far our favourite moments are those when we come up with elegant solutions to design challenges that we were facing for a while. And when you are working with so many diverse products, many of which have never been made before, these challenges crop up more often than we would like. But cracking them with your team is exhilarating and brings me to my next point. The discussions: Say you are stuck with a problem. All you need to do is walk a few steps, plop yourself onto a bean bag and start a discussion with some of the brightest minds of this country. Fun fact: they will be a mixture of engineers, designers, researchers and sales/ops/marketing etc. Just verbalising your problem will help iron out the kinks in your assumptions, will add new constraints and possibly nudge you in the right direction. And even if that doesn’t happen, I’m sure your grey cells would appreciate the exercise. The team: With the flattest structure possible devoid of any hierarchy, the team (especially me) really hates rigidity and discipline. So ya, interns get to crack jokes at the expense of the first designer who joined Housing (but yes, interns are also used as goal posts). And yes, you get to plan for your design studio as a team. Things turn quite interesting when plans are made to have a small forest in the design space. The parties: Housing is well known for it’s kickass parties (In case you missed it:  & https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.837554756273436.1073741834.445540912141491&type=3). But the design team has its own set of parties (can’t share photos/videos of those, Quora policies you know :P). The people: For people running at breakneck speed to solve one of the biggest problems we all face, it's very important to be surrounded by friends. Yes, you will find friends here in the team and not colleagues. PS: I lead the Design team at http://Housing.com. If you find our work interesting, do buzz me. We are always looking for amazing people to join our team.

http://Ideafarms.com - I founded it. Design leadership is more about culture than meets the eye. There's no debate on what comes first, design is what leads customer delight. It isn't about great presentations or about pleasing looks. Design shapes the personality of a product or service.

Not a design company per se, but back around 3 years there was a small group of people in the UX dept in Satyam, truly design led, they had a separate design den, all cooly done with led spot lights and personal colors and art work. And yes they did not follow the HR policy of no long hair, or tattoos or ear piercing for guys. as of now not sure. really depends on the leadership.

http://www.designforuse.net Great culture. Nice people. Good work. What else do you need ?