> I feel like complicated builds are usually the result of an application that is not very well thought out in the first place.
Welcome to the world of enterprise Java or .net programming. Loads upon loads of crap. Best served with multiple frontends (e.g. web + mobile) which need different npm versions to compile and all of it out of a single fucking pom.xml which is a nightmare in itself!
If you're mixing npm with pom files you are asking for trouble. Jenkin's shortcomings have nothing to do with npm's crappy package management. (not saying you said that, just pointing it out)
Welcome to the world of enterprise Java or .net programming. Loads upon loads of crap. Best served with multiple frontends (e.g. web + mobile) which need different npm versions to compile and all of it out of a single fucking pom.xml which is a nightmare in itself!