Techniques for determining processing layouts to nodes of a dataflow graph. The techniques include: obtaining information specifying a dataflow graph, the dataflow graph comprising a plurality of nodes and a plurality of edges connecting the plurality nodes, the plurality of edges representing flows of data among nodes in the plurality of nodes, the plurality of nodes comprising: a first set of one or more nodes; and a second set of one or more nodes disjoint from the first set of nodes; obtaining a first set of one or more processing layouts for the first set of nodes; and determining a processing layout for each node in the second set of nodes based on the first set of processing layouts and one or more layout determination rules, the one or more layout determination rules including at least one rule for selecting among processing layouts having different degrees of parallelism.