Technologies for processing network packets by a host interface of a network interface controller (NIC) of a compute device. The host interface is configured to retrieve, by a symmetric multi-purpose (SMP) array of the host interface, a message from a message queue of the host interface and process, by a processor core of a plurality of processor cores of the SMP array, the message to identify a long-latency operation to be performed on at least a portion of a network packet associated with the message. The host interface is further configured to generate another message which includes an indication of the identified long-latency operation and a next step to be performed upon completion. Additionally, the host interface is configured to transmit the other message to a corresponding hardware unit scheduler as a function of the subsequent long-latency operation to be performed. Other embodiments are described herein.