HAWK
Replacing Bentley’s 50-hour Version Change Request process with a modern, automated platform.
A 19-month, end-to-end project I led from problem discovery through to live launch. HAWK is now used daily by 200+ engineers across Bentley R&D and is forecast to save the business £11.5m over six years.
I wrote 100% of the code — but the value I’m proudest of is the cross-functional work that made sure the final solution actually solved every department’s problem. Early feedback from engineers using the tool has been overwhelmingly positive.
19 months
End-to-end delivery
200+ engineers
Using it across Bentley R&D
57%
Faster per VCR (50.9 → 21.8 hrs)
£11.5m
Projected 6-year saving
“Super essential.”
Frank’s reaction after my team first pitched the idea to him in the early stages. He immediately recognised that VCR was a purely administrative process where Bentley’s engineers were adding little value — and was therefore primed to be automated.
At a glance
The fast version
Outcome
Before HAWK vs. after HAWK
The new tool gives engineers the information they need in a faster, clearer format — without reinventing the underlying business process.
Slow & manual
Multiple PDF forms, hand-filled, with the same data repeated across every document.
Automated end-to-end
Direct integration with existing Bentley & VW systems removes manual entry and de-duplicates data at source.
Lots of repeat work
A single typo meant restarting every document from scratch — hours of avoidable rework per VCR.
Validation & governance
Built-in checks raise right-first-time submissions and protect data quality before it leaves the engineer.
No visibility
PDFs were emailed for signatures with no way to track who still needed to approve.
End-to-end digital workflow
Integrated approval and signing — full visibility of status, owners and bottlenecks across departments.
The problem
A high-friction process, shared between many departments
The VCR (Version Change Request) is the legal mechanism that signs off every piece of software released onto a Bentley vehicle. Because ownership was spread across multiple departments, no single team was positioned to fix it — and the cost compounded with every change shipped.
What stakeholders told me
- The process was manual and time-consuming.
- Different teams needed the same information in different places.
- Small changes could take far too long to progress.
- Avoidable rework: a single typo meant restarting every document.
- No-one could see who still needed to sign.
- No team owned the end-to-end process, so no team could fix it.
What I turned that into
A clear, measurable business problem: reduce engineer effort per VCR without losing control or quality — and do it in a way Bentley can own and evolve for years to come.
I authored a structured requirements list from the stakeholder interviews, produced a feasibility analysis, and built the risk & cost-benefit case used to secure board backing.
My role
Lead engineer and project owner — end to end
My manager gave me autonomy over the direction, the technical build, and the stakeholder relationships. The UX/UI and IT teams supported at the right moments; I owned delivery.
Discovery & strategy
- Stakeholder interviews
- Requirements & PDS
- Cost-benefit & risk docs
- Board-level presenting
Engineering
- Next.js / React frontend
- Spring Boot API & SOAP bridge
- MSSQL schema design
- VM deployment & CI
Delivery & leadership
- UX/UI onboarding pack
- Weekly cross-team scrums
- Specialist input to IT
- Live trial → launch with 200+ engineers
The journey
From a vague problem to a live platform
Nineteen months of progressive delivery. Each step de-risked the next.
- Step 1Autumn 2024
Learned the business
Onboarding, internal e-learning (sustainability, cyber-security), and process shadowing across R&D. Identified that the VCR process was shared between several departments — owned by all, optimised by none.
- Step 2Winter 2024
Stakeholder discovery
Interviewed every key stakeholder team to capture pain points first-hand and translate them into a structured requirements list and customer-needs document.
- Step 3Jan 2025
Evaluated the options
Compared off-the-shelf vs bespoke against time, cost, maintainability and compatibility with Bentley & VW Group infrastructure. Concluded an in-house build was both cheapest and lowest risk.
- Step 42 Apr 2025
Board approval
Presented the business case, risk register and cost-benefit analysis to the board and secured backing to proceed in-house.
- Step 52025 – early 2026
Built the platform
Self-taught TypeScript, Next.js, Spring Boot and PostgreSQL. Designed the split architecture to bridge a clean modern UI to the Volkswagen Group's Java 8 SOAP services.
- Step 6Spring 2026
Third-party security audit
Independent code review: 0 critical, 10 high, 9 medium, 5 low. All 24 issues remediated before launch.
- Step 722 May 2026
Live launch
HAWK went live on Bentley's internal infrastructure. Now used by 200+ engineers across the Electrical, Technical Conformity and Manufacturing departments.
Architecture
A split stack: modern UX, legacy compatibility
The hard constraint was Volkswagen Group's Java 8 SOAP services — incompatible with modern frontends. I split the stack so the user-facing layer could be modern while the integration layer stayed compatible with the legacy world.
Engineer
Browser, internal network only
Next.js UI
Modern, responsive UX designed with Bentley's UX/UI team
Spring Boot API
The bridge. Translates a modern REST UI into legacy SOAP calls — isolating the Java 8 constraint to one layer.
MSSQL database
VCR data, audit trail, signatures. Schema aligned with Bentley's existing data stack.
VW Group services
Live integration with System 42 (Java 8 SOAP) — the canonical Volkswagen Group data.
Why this mattered
- The frontend was free to deliver the UX the business actually wanted.
- The backend kept legacy compatibility intact — no risky rewrite of VW services.
- Splitting the stack isolated the Java 8 constraint to a single, well-tested layer.
Key design decisions
- MSSQL chosen to align with Bentley’s existing databases.
- Kept maintainable and scalable so the platform can grow beyond VCR.
- On-prem VM deployment for secure, realistic operation behind the firewall.
Tech stack
Self-taught, end to end
Most of this stack I learned during the project. Everything below ships in HAWK today.
The product
HAWK, in use
A walkthrough of the live tool, used daily by engineers across Bentley R&D. HAWK runs only on Bentley's internal network — these screenshots are the only public view.
Business impact
Value that compounds, year on year
The business case I presented to the board projected savings across the first six years of operation. Year-1 alone clears the build cost; from there the saving grows as more changes flow through the tool and legacy parallel work is retired.
57%
Time saved per VCR (50.9 → 21.8 hrs)
£860k
Projected saving in year 1 (2026)
£11.5m
Projected 6-year saving
Projected annual saving
£ millions per year · efficiency saving only
Source: business case presented to the Bentley board, April 2025.
These figures are time-efficiency only.They don’t include the further upside of reducing production-line stoppages during urgent changes — meaning the real saving to the business is likely materially higher than the numbers shown above.
Leadership & collaboration
Built independently — delivered collaboratively
The technical work was largely solo, but HAWK only ships because of the people around it. I designed the way those teams plugged in.
Stakeholders & UX/UI
- Two rounds of stakeholder interviews — discovery, then design validation.
- Produced a detailed onboarding pack so the UX/UI team could contribute from day one.
- Weekly scrums kept dev and design aligned on scope, timeline and quality bar.
- Balanced creative input with delivery cost — keeping the business on track.
IT, governance & the board
- Authored risk and cost-benefit documentation for Bentley IT governance.
- Became the specialist reference for IT on the legacy SUMS process.
- Presented the business case directly to the board to secure approval.
- Became R&D’s main point of contact for the future direction of the tool.
Quality & security
Independent third-party security audit
Before launch I commissioned a full independent third-party security review of the codebase — a deliberate decision given that HAWK now sits on the path of every software release onto a Bentley vehicle.
Audit headline
100% of the code was written by me, and this was the first formal security audit I had ever commissioned. Zero critical findings — every high-severity issue fixed before launch, one month later.
For a solo-built, first-audit codebase, zero critical findings was a strong validation of the architecture and engineering practices I had applied throughout — and all ten high-severity items were triaged and remediated in the month between audit and the 22 May 2026 launch.
Skills demonstrated
A deliberately broad project
HAWK was chosen as much for what it would teach me as for the business value it would deliver. The breadth below reflects exactly that.
Technical
- TypeScript
- Next.js / React
- Java / Spring Boot
- MSSQL schema design
- SOAP ↔ REST integration
- Legacy Java 8 interop
- System architecture
- Secure-by-design
- Git / version control
- VM deployment
Product & solutions
- Requirements gathering
- Customer needs → PDS
- Feasibility analysis
- Cost-benefit modelling
- Risk assessment
- Roadmap planning
- Change management
Leadership & communication
- Board-level presenting
- Cross-departmental stakeholder management
- UX/UI onboarding & induction packs
- Running weekly scrums
- Mentoring contributors
- Specialist input to IT governance
Reflection
What HAWK taught me — and what's next
HAWK started as a high-friction process shared between multiple departments, where no single team was empowered to fix it end-to-end. The biggest unlock wasn’t the code — it was treating the legacy Java 8 constraint as a layered architecture problem rather than a blocker, and getting the right people into the right conversations at the right time. The most rewarding moment was watching engineers begin using it live: every hour they save is the project paying itself back.
HAWK isn’t finished. With the platform live, the roadmap shifts toward dashboards, automation hooks, and integrating adjacent R&D workflows — turning a single tool into the basis for a wider operational platform.
A question I put to the board
“Matthias — how many other processes inside R&D could deliver millions in saving if we resourced more people like me?”
Directed to Matthias Rabe, Board Member for R&D. I think it’s also a fair question for any business reading this: how many of your own internal processes are quietly primed for the same kind of return?