Gerard
Beckerleg
Started as a .NET developer. Built a Java development team when Hyundai moved to AEM. Learned PHP and built a Drupal practice when Boehringer Ingelheim mandated it. Fifteen years of enterprise architecture across automotive, pharmaceutical, financial services and tourism.
Core Capabilities
Architecture & Systems Design
Builds compounding systems rather than one-off deliverables. At Hyundai, architected an interconnected ecosystem over eight years where the PIM feeds the website, ROAP feeds pricing, D2C reads from both, and a universal identifier ties everything to a single customer moment. Fixes problems upstream: consolidates scattered logic, reduces failure points, leaves things simpler and cheaper to maintain than they were before.
Engineering Across Stacks
.NET is the foundation. The stack changes when the problem demands it. Built a Java development team from scratch when Hyundai moved to AEM. Learned PHP and stood up a Drupal practice when Boehringer Ingelheim mandated it. Python for a German-developed codebase. Production systems shipped in each language.
Identity, Security & Access Control
Identity and access control has come up across almost every significant engagement. Designed SSO architectures using Keycloak, Okta, Auth0, and ADFS. Reverse-engineered a legacy authentication system to enable zero-password-reset platform migration. Designed data architectures that store no PII in application databases. Managed penetration testing cycles across financial services and pharmaceutical clients.
Integration Architecture
Designs the connections between systems, not just the systems themselves. Azure API Gateway for CRM and PIM integration, open banking APIs for live product data, DMS integration across every stage of an automated purchase journey, multi-layer caching and pre-emptive rate limiting to protect external APIs across distributed server environments under peak load.
Technical Translation
Engineers and non-technical stakeholders both trust Gerard because he operates fluently in both worlds. A qualified teacher, formally trained to break down complex material for people encountering it for the first time. That skill surfaces when explaining an architectural trade-off to a stakeholder, relaying technical constraints accurately to an account team, or helping a developer understand what a client actually needs.
Building Teams That Last
Grew a team from 10 to 35 people across Sydney, the Philippines and Colombia. Multiple engineers have stayed for six to nine years in an industry where two is normal. Built Java and PHP capabilities from scratch when client work required new platforms. The approach: hire people who want to learn, give them ownership, and take responsibility when things go wrong. Retention proves it works.
Architecture & Engineering in Practice
D2C Vehicle Sales Platform
Built a fully bespoke direct-to-consumer vehicle sales platform with no off-the-shelf components. Four people. Ninety days from start to launch. Deep DMS integration at every automated stage: stock check, quote creation, deal finalisation, contract generation, payment processing. Post-launch load testing used man-in-the-middle proxy to simulate API failures, timeouts and 500 errors. Graceful degradation designed so the purchase journey degrades without losing the customer. Subsequently refactored into a white-label platform now live for Genesis.
Sold out its initial launch allocation on day oneEight-Year Digital Ecosystem
Eight years as the continuous architectural thread across an enterprise ecosystem: brand website (AEM), owner portal with custom SSO, D2C ecommerce, PIM (Java Spring Boot), ROAP pricing engine (Java Spring Boot), and Genesis brand site. Each system a node in a larger architecture: PIM feeds the website, ROAP feeds pricing across all enterprise systems, D2C reads from both, Keycloak SSO connects users across portals. Began as a project rescue of a failing platform with regular outages and a stuck backlog.
Highest-revenue client relationship. Embedded team of 14 to 15.SSO & Identity Architecture
At My Hyundai, reverse-engineered the existing legacy authentication mechanism and wrapped a new Keycloak SSO layer around it, so users could log into both the new and legacy systems including the Autolink mobile app with identical credentials, zero password resets required. Designed Keycloak SSO across ROAP, My Hyundai and PIM, architected for future mobile extension. Across other clients: Okta for Tourism Tasmania, Auth0 for Carlisle Homes, ADFS with custom OWIN JWT modules at SSW. Identity and access control is a layer that has come up across almost every significant engagement.
Zero password resets on legacy-to-new platform migrationEnterprise Data Mapping & DXP Platform
Ran stakeholder interviews across the entire enterprise to map every data source, owner, consumer and dependency. The relational complexity was incomprehensible in tabular format, so built a bespoke D3.js interactive graph visualisation tool (built personally) to make it navigable. Stakeholders could click through the data landscape, inspect sources and trace flows across the organisation. Also delivered the Optimizely DXP platform: CDP-driven personalisation via ODP, ML content recommendations, Okta SSO across website and Flutter mobile app, and ATDW integration.
Enterprise data landscape made comprehensible. Pitch-won client.Endometriosis Diagnostic AI
Fine-tuned an OpenAI model on a labelled dataset of patient pain descriptions to identify symptom patterns indicative of endometriosis. Training data categories defined with a medical subject matter expert, dataset assembled and labelled, model fine-tuned and validated against a held-out test set. Integrated into a conversational web interface where patients could describe symptoms in natural language and receive information based on their responses. Completed and pitched to multiple companies. Adoption prevented by legal and liability constraints around AI in medical diagnosis, which the team identified and navigated rather than pushed through.
Full AI pipeline from training data definition to validated modelFireBootCamp Mentor & Developer Training
Mentored developers on FireBootCamp, a nine-week full-immersion .NET and AngularJS bootcamp. Covered enterprise architecture, SOLID principles, TypeScript, Entity Framework, MVC, Web API and Scrum. Running at the same time as lecturing in .NET MVC and SharePoint at the University of Technology Sydney. Teaching developers who are encountering things for the first time forces clear thinking about how concepts actually fit together, and that carries through into every client engagement since.
Concurrent with .NET MVC and SharePoint lecturing at UTSHCP Deep Linking & Pharma Platform
HCPs were bouncing off the login wall when clicking through from campaign emails to restricted content. Designed a deep linking system generating unique one-time-use tokens, allowing HCPs to bypass authentication for that session without compromising platform security. Coordinated BI's global Adobe Campaign with local Drupal across teams in the US, Germany and Australia. Also built weather-based dynamic email personalisation, with content assembled per recipient at send time based on postcode weather conditions. Delivered under AHPRA and Medicines Australia Code of Conduct requirements.
Measurably increased HCP content engagement. Established PHP and Adobe practice.Technologies & Platforms
AI, ML & Data
- OpenAI Fine-Tuning
- Supervised Learning / NLP
- Training Data & Validation
- Propensity Modelling
- CDP / Optimizely Data Platform
- Google BigQuery (CDP)
- Content Recommendations (ML)
- D3.js Data Visualisation
DXP & CMS Platforms
- Optimizely DXP
- Optimizely Commerce
- Adobe Experience Manager
- Adobe Cloud
- Drupal
- Umbraco / Umbraco Commerce
- Kentico
- WordPress
- Shopify
Marketing Technology
- Adobe Campaign
- Adobe Target
- Adobe Analytics
- Marketo
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud
- Mailchimp
- HubSpot
- Dynamic Personalisation
Integration & API
- Azure API Gateway
- REST API Architecture
- Open Banking
- Salesforce / Veeva
- DMS Integration
- CRM / PIM Integration
- ATDW
- ETL & Data Sync
Identity & Security
- Okta
- Auth0
- Keycloak
- ADFS / JWT / OWIN
- SSO Architecture
- PII Data Protection
- Pen Test Management
Languages & Infrastructure
Production systems built and shipped in each language.
- .NET / C#
- Java / Java Spring Boot
- PHP / Laravel
- JavaScript / TypeScript
- Python
- Azure / AWS / Adobe Cloud
- Docker / CI/CD
- Microservices Architecture
Started as a developer. Still thinks like one.
Gerard started writing code at Welcome Software in England in 2006. He moved to Australia and joined SSW, a .NET consultancy in Sydney, where he built enterprise applications, led Scrum teams, and lectured in .NET and SharePoint at the University of Technology Sydney. Before Australia, a career break teaching English in Italy, where he qualified as a teacher. That training in breaking down complex material for people encountering it for the first time shows up constantly: when walking a non-technical stakeholder through an architecture decision, or helping developers understand what a client actually needs rather than what they said they wanted.
At Orchard he grew from Solution Architect to Technical Director. The stack changed when the work demanded it. When a major automotive client needed to migrate from Elcom to AEM, he built the Java development team from scratch. When a global pharmaceutical client mandated migration to their Drupal platform, he learned PHP and built that team too. When a German-developed Python codebase arrived as part of an Aldi stock localisation project, he picked it up. Not a generalist. An engineer who goes where the problem is, owns what he builds, and leaves things better than he found them.
Today: designing distributed system architectures, working closely with senior developers on caching, rate-limiting and graceful degradation problems, overseeing security posture through penetration test cycles, and staying in the technical detail closely enough to guide quality without removing engineers' ownership of the implementation. The team grew from ten to 35 across Sydney, the Philippines and Colombia. Multiple engineers have stayed for six to nine years in an industry where two is normal. That retention is not an accident. Started as a developer. Still thinks like one.