Your CI pipeline takes 45 minutes. How would you speed it up?

Summary

Measure where time goes, then: cache dependencies and Docker layers, run independent jobs in parallel and split test suites across runners, run only what changed (affected-project detection in monorepos), move slow end-to-end tests out of the per-commit path into a later stage, fix or quarantine flaky tests, and use faster runners where the cost is justified.

Longer Answer

Targets: under 10 minutes for the commit stage is a common goal, because slow feedback leads to batching changes and context switching. Also check for waiting rather than working (queued jobs, insufficient runners), redundant steps (building the same thing twice), and tests that sleep. Track pipeline duration and failure rate as metrics over time.

Key Points

• Measure first.
• Cache, parallelise, shard tests.
• Run only affected work.
• Fix flaky tests; move slow tests later.