Technical lead - Transmission line design

Summary

Lead the technical design and engineering of high-voltage transmission lines, using PLS-CADD and STAAD Pro to ensure safety, reliability, and compliance with national and international standards.

The principal responsibilities essentially includes -

- Act as the overall technical authority for Transmission Line (TL) engineering, responsible for defining, governing and approving all technical aspects of transmission line projects across the complete project lifecycle.

- Establish, implement and maintain the Transmission Line Design Basis, engineering philosophies, calculation methodologies and standard practices, ensuring alignment with national and international standards, regulations and client-specific technical requirements.

- Provide technical leadership for route alignment and survey interface, including review and validation of topographical surveys, longitudinal profiles and plan drawings, ensuring routing decisions adequately address electrical clearances, ROW constraints, environmental considerations, access, constructability and lifecycle risks.

- Govern the electrical design of transmission lines, including selection and approval of conductors, ground wire / OPGW, phase configuration, insulation strings and geometry, and ensuring sag–tension philosophy adequately considers temperature effects, creep behaviour and code-mandated reliability conditions.

- Lead and approve PLS-CADD based tower spotting and span optimisation, ensuring appropriate tower type selection, sectioning philosophy and angle distribution, while balancing structural safety, foundation feasibility, constructability and overall project cost optimisation.

- Define and approve tower structural design criteria, including reliability levels, governing load cases and load combinations covering normal, maximum wind, minimum temperature, broken wire (phase-wise and ground wire), angle deviation and security conditions.

- Review and approve tower structural analysis and design outputs, including results from PLS-Tower, PLS-Pole or equivalent tools, member sizing, slenderness checks, utilisation ratios, connection philosophy and detailing approach, ensuring readiness for prototype tower testing where applicable.

- Coordinate and govern foundation design approach in conjunction with geotechnical inputs, including interpretation of soil investigation reports, selection of appropriate foundation types (pad & chimney, pile, rock or special foundations), and validation of foundation loads derived from tower analysis.

- Oversee preparation, review and approval of engineering deliverables and documentation, including design calculation reports, plan & profile drawings, tower schedules, foundation drawings, stringing charts, erection drawings and construction-ready documentation, ensuring accuracy, clarity, revision control and traceability.

- Lead internal and external design reviews, technical workshops and risk assessments, identifying design, constructability and execution risks at early stages and defining appropriate mitigation measures.

- Drive value engineering and optimisation initiatives across line routing, tower spotting, tower and foundation design, without compromising safety, reliability or statutory compliance.

- Act as the technical escalation point for execution-stage support, including resolution of site-driven design changes, non-conformances, deviations, construction-stage technical queries, and finalisation of as-built engineering documentation.

- Interface effectively with clients, utilities, EPC contractors, PMCs and internal multidisciplinary teams, ensuring technical alignment, timely resolution of comments and smooth progression of engineering deliverables.

- Support bid and tender-stage engineering activities, including review of technical specifications, definition of engineering scope and assumptions, estimation of engineering effort and identification of technical risks impacting cost and schedule.

Requirements

Skill Set Required

Technical & Domain Skills

- Strong expertise in EHV / UHV transmission line design (110 kV to 765 kV, HVDC preferred), with exposure to utility-scale and complex corridor projects.

- In-depth understanding of transmission line load cases and reliability conditions, tower configurations and foundation interfaces, and electrical clearances including sag–tension behaviour and construction practices.

- Hands-on working knowledge of PLS-CADD, PLS-Tower, PLS-Pole and STAAD Pro, with the ability to interpret analysis outputs and design results.

Professional & Leadership Skills

- Strong technical judgment and sound engineering decision-making capability.

- Proven ability to manage multiple stakeholders and complex project interfaces.

- Clear, structured communication with internal teams, clients and contractors.

- High level of ownership, delivery discipline and quality orientation.

Automation & Productivity Skills

- Ability to define and drive automation and standardisation strategies across transmission line engineering workflows to improve productivity, consistency and quality.

- Experience in establishing standard design templates, calculation formats and tool configurations for PLS-CADD, PLS-Tower and AutoCAD to ensure uniform application across projects.

- Capability to identify high-effort or repetitive engineering activities and guide the team in implementing automation, reusable libraries and optimised workflows.

- Strong focus on delivery efficiency, quality control and scalability of engineering outputs in line with business growth objectives.

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Technical lead - Transmission line design

Summary

Requirements

Technical & Domain Skills

Professional & Leadership Skills

Automation & Productivity Skills

See also

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