Xoogler here who used the internal version of Bazel ( blaze ) extensively, liked it and now opted to use it for our 2 person startup ( at least for the backend ).
You don't need a giant codebase to start benefitting from it. Even if you have a smaller codebase, and properly use bazel to setup tests, you only test what needs testing, and that makes a huge difference in productivity.
Bazel has experimental but pretty sophisticated support for TypeScript, with arguably a better compilation experience for large projects than the best known alternatives. (Disclaimer: I'm biased because I work on it, but I also work on non-bazel TypeScript projects so I am aware of the tradeoffs.)
You don't need a giant codebase to start benefitting from it. Even if you have a smaller codebase, and properly use bazel to setup tests, you only test what needs testing, and that makes a huge difference in productivity.