Optimization work sounds like it might be a really good fit for coding agents. If you can provide a robust test which "proves" the implementation works the actual work of increasing its performance is the kind of thing a coding agent could run in a loop, testing each optimization to see if the tests still pass and it runs faster.

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whynotmaybe 3 hours ago | parent [-]

But we might end up with "work on my infrastructure" optimization that would be hard to reproduce.

Like that research that evolved an FPGA where some unconnected parts where crucial for the the expected behaviour.

https://www.eetimes.com/whatever-happened-to-evolvable-hardw...

	▲	mholm 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Adding a few diverse hardware environments available for testing during the duration would mitigate this. Many companies wouldn't have any issues having infrastructure specific optimizations either. (Part of) Deepseek's big advantage over their chinese competitors was their intelligent use of the hardware, after all.