Disclosed herein are representative embodiments of methods, systems, and apparatus for performing synthesis. For example, in one exemplary method disclosed herein, a high-level description of a complete circuit design is partitioned into a plurality of sections. Two or more synthesis engine configurations are selected for a respective one of the sections. The respective one of the sections is synthesized using the two or more selected synthesis engine configurations, thereby generating two or more gate-level descriptions. A gate-level description of the complete circuit design is generated that includes at least a portion of one of the gate-level descriptions. Computer-readable media storing instructions for causing a computer to perform any of the disclosed methods are also disclosed herein.