various pipeline improvements (#1454) #2710

Job	Run time
build	11m 7s
test_when_cache_missing	0s
test_when_cache_present (0, 11, 648)	30m 58s
test_when_cache_present (1, 11, 648)	34m 15s
test_when_cache_present (2, 11, 648)	26m 41s
test_when_cache_present (3, 11, 648)	42m 25s
test_when_cache_present (4, 11, 648)	27m 37s
test_when_cache_present (5, 11, 648)	27m 31s
test_when_cache_present (6, 11, 648)	28m 55s
save_test_times_when_cache_missing	0s
test_when_cache_present (7, 11, 648)	31m 31s
test_when_cache_present (8, 11, 648)	29m 18s
test_when_cache_present (9, 11, 648)	35m 7s
test_when_cache_present (10, 11, 648)	36m 8s
test_when_cache_present (11, 11, 648)	17m 30s
save_test_times_when_cache_present	12s
	6h 19m 15s

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