This but unironically - I was at a top HFT firm and admittedly lots of SWE talent we try to get end up going to HRT (comp being equal) because they present themselves as more tech forward, due in part to articles like this. I'm guessing the author of the article wrote this with good intentions of providing some insight into their process, but tech blogs at the end of the day are recruiting tools.

Also agreed that this is a pretty surface level optimization, theres a reason why they are talking about it. If you are doing true HFT with purely software traders, you will probably lose to more serious players using FPGAs, which as OP mentioned isn't exactly new.