Flow balancing includes selecting, for each down hole flow control valve of a well, a transformed well performance curve corresponding to a first down hole flow control valve pressure to obtain transformed well performance curves. The well includes a lateral including the down hole flow control valves. Using a constraint set that includes a balancing condition for the lateral, a network optimization analysis is performed on the transformed well performance curves to generate a set of choke positions corresponding to each down hole flow control valve. Network modeling of the well is performed based on the set of choke positions to obtain a second down hole flow control valve pressure for each down hole flow control valve. Using the set of choke positions, a field operation is performed for the well based on the second down hole flow control valve pressure being within a threshold difference of the first down hole flow control valve pressure for each down hole flow control valve.