At my previous job I, too, set up CI/CD from Schematics/PCB data to device documentation PDFs, 3D models for mechanical integration, and packages for several of our EMS (electronics manufacturing services, each required different data formats) and other items, such as part database management (EOL checks, availability, prices). I, too, used KiCad and Gitlab, and was honestly quite happy with it. The biggest problem was that at a professional scale, KiCad was crashing a bit more often than one would like and it was tedious to find and fix the bugs or work around them if they were already fixed upstream (which they often were).

Still, this heavily sped up prototyping, as anybody could always fetch the data required to release or produce stuff. Shifting left works for electronics just as well as it does for software. :)