There is disclosed in one example a method of a work node synchronously load balancing to a multi-node service having an expected maximum of n work nodes, including: provisioning a flow table having m bucket groups, m≥1, the bucket groups including n slots each; enumerating a static integer self-identification id0; initializing the flow table with id0 in each slot; performing a discovery iteration, including: discovering a peer device; enumerating a static integer identification idx for the peer device; assigning idx to each slot corresponding to a home position for the peer device; and load balancing slots not assigned to a home position according to a deterministic algorithm; and discovering additional nodes and performing discovery iteration for the additional nodes.