Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed for intentional programming for heterogeneous systems. An example apparatus includes a code lifter to identify annotated code corresponding to an algorithm to be executed on the heterogeneous system based on an identifier being associated with the annotated code, and convert the annotated code in the first representation to intermediate code in a second representation by identifying the intermediate code as having a first algorithmic intent that corresponds to a second algorithmic intent of the annotated code, a domain specific language (DSL) generator to translate the intermediate code in the second representation to DSL code in a third representation when the first algorithmic intent matches the second algorithmic intent, the third representation corresponding to a DSL representation, and a code replacer to invoke a compiler to generate an executable including variant binaries based on the DSL code.