Testing & CI Pipeline Optimization
Reworked the testing configuration and CI pipeline at Employment Hero. Reduced test execution time from 4–5 minutes, optimised CircleCI resource usage, and enhanced test reliability — helping the entire team ship faster.
Overview
Slow and flaky tests erode developer confidence and slow down the whole team. The test suite at Employment Hero had accumulated configuration debt — unnecessary re-runs, suboptimal Jest parallelism, and over-provisioned CircleCI resource classes consuming budget. I audited the full pipeline, reorganised test sharding, fixed recurring flaky tests at the root (often timing-dependent assertions), and tuned CircleCI resource classes. The end result was a significantly faster feedback loop for the entire four-person squad, with each developer saving multiple minutes per PR cycle.
Key highlights
- Reduced test execution time from 4–5 minutes
- Optimised CircleCI resource class allocation
- Fixed root-cause flaky test patterns
- Improved developer confidence in CI feedback
- Faster shipping velocity across the squad