Yeah, I’ve been there – the micro is like a stubborn old engine that won’t budge. Quick sort is great for big data, but on a 32‑bit MCU every branch is a gasp of power. Drop the recursion, stack it into a fixed buffer, inline the swap – that’s where the elegance goes to the floor and the cycles get trimmed. If you can get away with a hybrid – quick for big chunks, insertion for the last ten – you’ll keep the clock happy and the code readable enough for humans to debug. Remember, a microcontroller is a living thing – push it, but don’t let it choke on your cleverness.