Aspects of the invention include systems and methods to obtain meta features of a dataset for training in a deep learning application. A method includes selecting an initial search space that defines a type of deep learning architecture representation that specifies hyperparameters for two or more neural network architectures. The method also includes applying a search strategy to the initial search space. One of the two or more neural network architectures are selected based on a result of an evaluation according to the search strategy. A new search space is generated with new hyperparameters using an evolutionary algorithm and a mutation type that defines one or more changes in the hyperparameters specified by the initial search space, and, based on the mutation type, the new hyperparameters are applied to the one of the two or more neural networks or the search strategy is applied to the new search space.