How we cut build times in half without changing the stack

In our quest for developer velocity, we hit a wall where our CI pipeline was taking upwards of 30 minutes to complete. It wasn't just a matter of frustration; it was a significant bottleneck in our deployment process.

Start by measuring, not guessing

We began by instrumenting our build process to identify which specific tasks were consuming the most time. It turned out that our dependency resolution was the primary culprit, coupled with some inefficient caching strategies.

"Optimization is not about doing less work; it's about making the work you do more meaningful by removing the friction that holds you back."

By shifting our approach from monolithic builds to a more granular, parallelized strategy, we managed to slice our build duration significantly. This improvement has allowed our team to focus more on feature development rather than waiting on spinning loading bars.