Performance Engineering

Evidence-based performance optimization → measure → profile → optimize → validate.

<when_to_use>

• Profiling slow code paths or bottlenecks
• Identifying memory leaks or excessive allocations
• Optimizing latency-critical operations (P95, P99)
• Benchmarking competing implementations
• Database query optimization
• Reducing CPU usage in hot paths
• Improving throughput (RPS, ops/sec)

NOT for: premature optimization, optimization without measurement, guessing at bottlenecks

</when_to_use>

<iron_law>