[peterwwillis]

I don't know other people's experience with Jenkins, but I didn't find it to be much overhead. It's got all the capabilities you need to run at high scale, assuming you use it properly, like using the DSL and containers, and managing the configuration and deployment as code.

Jenkins X, for example, is inherently cloud-based and dynamically scaling. If you need a generic job queue to grow with the organization, that's what it does. And you can even pay someone to set you up, reducing lead time.

But there's also a dozen similar systems out there, so you're not even limited to this one. There's lots of choices and really no need to make a new one.

Re-using an existing component to make a new tool is still an independent software development project, which will almost never be as cheap as integrating a finished tool.