Hi @zeiss_hs ,
You are right, in AEM as CS, sling mapping path is /etc/map.
There is no way to create deployment pipeline same like we have for Web Tier for dispatchers.
But in AEM as CS, /etc/ path is considered as mutable content. Hence you can modify it by installing a content package. If you have any changes in /etc/* path, you can simply create a content package using you local packmgr and then install it on AEM as Cloud service package manager. Anyone with appropriate permissions will be able to that. I have verified it in my Cloud service environments. This is a quick update to your mappings without any deployments.