> I ended up rolling back the change, and wrote off the time spent as a proof-of-concept for developing and productionizing a custom JIT optimization.

In Canada, your org can get government money for this under the SR&ED program:

https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/scientific-...

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m00x 5 days ago | parent [-]

You can get SR&ED for anything in Canada. Even CRUD apps get SR&ED money.

	▲	Joel_Mckay 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Except the people that review your project don't necessarily keep it secret. The tax credit also won't cover Patents and Trademarks etc. which means as a startup you are vulnerable to getting scooped. YMMV =3