A method for quality objective-based ETL pipeline optimization is provided. An improvement objective is obtained from user input into a computing system. The improvement objective represents a priority optimization desired by a user for improved ETL flows for an application designed to run in memory of the computing system. An ETL flow is created in the memory of the computing system. The ETL flow is restructured for flow optimization with a processor of the computing system. The flow restructuring is based on the improvement objective. Flow restructuring can include application of flow rewriting optimization or application of an algebraic rewriting optimization. The optimized ETL flow is stored as executable code on a computer readable storage medium.