Yogesh Paithankar joined Central Water Engineering Service (CWES-Gr 'A') in 1990 through Combined Engineering Services Examination conducted by UPSC. He obtained his B.E. degree in Mechanical Engineering from SGSITS, Indore in 1988. In his professional career in CWES, he has worked in various positions in Central Water Commission. He has more than 28 years of work experience in different areas of water sector.

During his 7 years tenure in Control Board Directorate, he was involved in construction & contract management of Bansagar and Rajghat Interstate Projects and was awarded merit certificate by Chairman, CWC.

During his 9 years tenure in Narmada Basin Organisation, Bhopal, he has gained varied experience in working in different capacity. As Executive Engineer, Narmada Division he was involved in Hydrological Observation and Flood Forecasting activities in Narmada Basin. As Deputy Director (M&A) was responsible for monitoring of major and medium irrigation projects for MP & Chhattisgarh state including those funded under AIBP, CADWM as well as appraisal of medium irrigation projects of MP and Chattisgarh. During this period a book titled "Water Resources Development in Madhya Pradesh" was brought out by CWC, NBO Bhopal. The book was declared as Land Mark Publication of CWC for the year 2003-04 and was awarded with Merit Certificate on the occasion of Water Resources Day 2004 which was received by him being the lead person in drafting.

During his two years tenure in Design (N&W) Gates (N&W) directorate in CWC, New Delhi he was involved in design of hydro-mechanical equipment. During this period he has handled the work of preparation of specification drawings of hydro-mechanical equipments of Loharinagpada and Tapovan Vishnugarh Hydroelectric project of NTPC.

During his tenure of about 10 years at Remote Sensing Directorate in Central Water Commission New Delhi, he has been instrumental in developing "India Water Resources Information System – INDIA-WRIS" in association with National Remote Sensing Centre under Indian Space Organisation. India-WRIS is a web enabled GIS based Water Resources Information System (www.india-wris.nrsc.gov.in) having 105 GIS layers giving integrated picture of India’s Water Resources. River Basin Atlas of India was brought out under this project which received lot of appreciation. The CWC was awarded CBIP award for 2015 for developing India-WRIS portal. ESRI India also awarded CWC with Special Achievement Award in GIS (SAG) in 2016 during their Annual User’s meet for development of India-WRIS portal.

As Member Secretary INCID from July 2008 till July 2012 was coordinating the work of Research & Development on behalf of Ministry of Water Resources in Irrigation & Drainage sector. Instrumental in successfully organizing 59th IEC meeting and 5th Asian Regional Conference of ICID held at New Delhi during December 2009 with a participation of 700 participants out of which 200 were from abroad.

For a brief period he was looking after the work of PMKSY as CE (PMO) in CWC headquarters. Since 6th August 2018 he has taken over as Chief Engineer, National Water Academy, Pune. He is working towards expanding the vision of NWA in terms of reach, visibility, coverage & depth of content of its all activities. He is making special efforts in providing training to International participants, especially trainees from African and SAARC countries and also to explore new areas in water sector where training can be imparted to, in line with national water policy and to meet local and regional requirements.