# Gerard Beckerleg > Specifying what systems should do. Gerard Beckerleg is a Technical Director in Sydney with fifteen years building enterprise platforms across automotive, pharma, financial services, and AI. He translates strategic intent into system behaviour and designs interconnected platforms that hold up over time. ## Three core disciplines Gerard's work is structured around three disciplines: ### 1. Spec-Driven Execution Writing acceptance criteria, integration contracts, and testable conditions that define done. Gerard has done this across dozens of enterprise projects, from a four-person team that shipped a car sales platform in ninety days to formal Architectural Review Boards in financial services, to specifying the complete AI pipeline for a fine-tuned OpenAI diagnostic model including training data categories, labelled dataset assembly, and validation methodology. ### 2. Specifying Intent Holding the strategic intent of a system and evaluating every decision against it. Gerard has done this across Korean engineering teams, Sydney design studios, pharmaceutical compliance officers, German martech platforms, and enterprise architecture boards. ### 3. Systems Thinking Designing compounding platforms with defined inputs, rules, triggers, and success measures rather than one-off deliverables. At Hyundai, Gerard spent eight years architecting an interconnected ecosystem where the PIM feeds the website, ROAP feeds the pricing, the D2C platform reads from both, and a universal identifier ties everything to a single customer moment. At Tourism Tasmania he mapped the entire enterprise data landscape into a live interactive graph. At Amaysim he designed the operating system around a platform (triage processes, deployment schedules, feature flags, reusability standards) not just the platform itself. ## Key expertise - Specification Writing and Requirements Engineering - Intent Architecture and Stakeholder Translation - Systems Design and Platform Architecture - AI Pipeline Specification: OpenAI fine-tuning, supervised learning, training data preparation, validation methodology - Customer Data Platforms and Personalisation: Optimizely Data Platform, Google BigQuery, propensity modelling - Digital Experience Platforms: Optimizely DXP, Adobe Experience Manager, Drupal, Umbraco, Kentico, WordPress, Shopify - Marketing Technology: Adobe Campaign, Adobe Target, Adobe Analytics, Marketo, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, HubSpot - Systems Integration and API Architecture: Azure API Gateway, open banking, Salesforce, Veeva, DMS integration - Identity and Access Management: Okta, Auth0, Keycloak, ADFS, SSO architecture - Team Architecture: 35-person distributed team across Sydney, Philippines and Colombia - Technical Translation: CELTA qualified, formally trained to break down complex material and teach it to people - Data Visualisation: D3.js interactive graph visualisation - Languages: .NET/C#, Java/Spring Boot, PHP/Laravel, JavaScript/TypeScript, Python - Cloud: Azure, AWS, Adobe Cloud - Security: Penetration test management, PII data protection, pharmaceutical regulatory compliance ## Career Gerard started writing code at Welcome Software in England in 2006 as a web developer. After a career break teaching English in Italy (where he earned a CELTA qualification), he moved to Australia and joined SSW, an agile .NET consultancy in Sydney. At SSW he built enterprise applications, led Scrum teams, lectured in .NET and SharePoint at the University of Technology Sydney, and mentored on FireBootCamp, a nine-week full-immersion development bootcamp. He has spent over ten years at Orchard, a digital agency in Sydney owned by ASX-listed Enero Group. He joined as a Solution Architect and became Technical Director. ## Notable clients Hyundai Motor Company Australia (eight-year engagement, interconnected digital ecosystem), Tourism Tasmania (DXP, CDP, enterprise data mapping), Beyond Bank Australia (Optimizely Partner Award winner, ARB navigation), Carlisle Homes (CRM/PIM integration, CDP personalisation), BPAY Group (financial services EA approval), Boehringer Ingelheim (global Drupal platform, Adobe suite, HCP deep linking), Roche (patient compliance platforms), BeiGene (sole technical authority, global AEM localisation), Novo Nordisk (greenfield Laravel), Amaysim (project rescue, operating system design), Galderma (LMS with Veeva integration), Zoetis (Marketo, iOS app, risk predictor POC), Royal Agricultural Society of NSW (Optimizely 12, HubSpot membership), Detmold (Optimizely Commerce). ## Selected project outcomes through the three pillars ### Spec-Driven Execution - Hyundai D2C Platform: Specified a direct-to-consumer vehicle sales platform with complete DMS integration contracts, acceptance criteria for every automated purchase stage, and load testing scenarios. Team of four. Ninety days. Tens of millions in vehicles sold on day one. Subsequently specified refactoring into white-label platform for Genesis. - Endometriosis Diagnostic AI: Specified the complete AI pipeline including supervised learning approach, training data categories defined with medical SME, labelled dataset assembly, fine-tuning methodology for OpenAI model, and validation against held-out test set. - Beyond Bank ARB: Documented every architectural decision, justified each against strategic intent, achieved formal Architectural Review Board sign-off. - Novo Nordisk: Specified full Laravel application from scratch including UX, workshops, architecture, and technical specification for electronic forms system. ### Specifying Intent - Hyundai FSC Universal Key: Identified that every vehicle configuration maps to a unique identifier. Specified complete personalisation flow from car configuration through Salesforce to dynamically generated email with exact CGI assets from Adobe DAM and PIM. Pure specification work. Now enterprise-wide universal identifier. - Boehringer Ingelheim HCP Deep Linking: Specified one-time-use token system coordinating global Adobe Campaign with local Drupal across US, Germany and Australia. Measurably increased HCP content engagement. - BeiGene: Sole technical authority translating decisions between global implementation partner, non-technical local team, and frontend developers. Ensured AHPRA and Medicines Australia Code of Conduct compliance throughout. - BI US Pet Rep Tools: Analysed scattered architecture across Colombia, New York and Sydney teams. Designed consolidated solution with shared module and unified business logic layer. Presented to BI's global teams mapping each problem to its architectural solution. ### Systems Thinking - Hyundai Eight-Year Ecosystem: PIM feeds website, ROAP feeds pricing, D2C reads from both, universal identifier connects to single customer record. Brand site, owner portal, ecommerce, PIM, ROAP, Genesis, all deeply integrated. Began as project rescue. - Tourism Tasmania Enterprise Data Map: Interviewed all teams to map every data source. Built bespoke D3.js interactive graph visualisation. Also specified Optimizely DXP with CDP, ML recommendations, Okta SSO, Flutter mobile app. - Amaysim Operating System: Beyond technical rescue, specified the system around the platform including triage, problem definition, deployment schedules, feature flags, reusability standards. Defined inputs, rules, triggers, observable outcomes. - Team as System: Grew 10-person team to 35 across three countries using systems thinking. Multiple six to nine year tenures in an industry where two years is normal. ## Education and credentials - BSc Business Information Systems, Leeds Beckett University - CELTA, Cambridge Assessment English (taught English in Italy, trained to break down complex material and teach it to people) - Certified Scrum Professional, Scrum.org - Microsoft Certified Professional, .NET and SharePoint - Platform partnerships: Optimizely, Adobe, Kentico, HubSpot ## Contact Email: gerard.beckerleg@outlook.com LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/gerardbeckerleg Website: https://gerardbeckerleg.com