CI/CD pipelines have become slow bottlenecks blocking developer productivity
8/10 HighCI/CD pipelines that were designed to streamline development have ironically become large, complex, and slow. Developers frequently wait for builds, tests, and deployments to complete, with unnecessary processes consuming significant time. In one example, Slack's E2E pipeline spent 5 minutes building frontend code even when no frontend changes were made, wasting time across hundreds of daily PRs.
Sources
- Solving the Pain that is CI/CD - Dan Manges
- Tools For Pipeline Fixing...
- Is CI/CD Stifling Innovation? Reclaiming Developer Velocity in 2026
- 12 Biggest DevOps Challenges in 2026 (and How to Fix Them)
- The 10-Minute CI/CD Pipeline: How We Made Builds ...
- Is it time to switch CI/CD platforms? 7 warning signs - CircleCI
Collection History
A frequent pain point is long-running CI/CD pipelines. When build, test, or deployment steps drag on for too long, developers are left waiting around to see whether their changes passed or if they need to make adjustments. This delay disrupts their flow and can also pile up frustration across the team.
The streamlined process we envisioned has become a bottleneck, leaving developers waiting for builds, tests, and deployments. The promise of rapid iteration is fading, replaced by frustrating delays and lower productivity.