[mcenedella]

OP here.

Thanks for the great comment and sharing your story. In the context of your background - "Having worked on building up a lot of infrastructure stuff from the ground up," it's important that you chose numbers that are level appropriate for someone of your capabilities. if the feedback was " how accurately can "decreased load time by 75%" actually capture the scope of your work if it's a 5 minute change", then that indicates that you may have been showing numbers that weren't truly indicative of your skills and talents.

And I don't agree that picking up tasks that are low impact IRL will help. Ultimately, hiring managers aren't easy to fool, and low-impact metrics make a small impact on resume readers.