In certain aspects, the invention features a system and method for receiving a parent job configured to produce one or more descendant jobs, and scheduling computation of the parent job on a node computing device that is one of a plurality of node computing devices of a distributed computing system. In such an aspect, the distributed computing system further includes a scheduler server configured to selectively reschedule computation of a job other than a parent job from any one of the plurality of node computing devices to another of the node computing devices. Such an aspect further includes preventing rescheduling of the parent job unless each of the descendant jobs is completed or terminated. In other aspects, the invention features a system and method for receiving, for computation by a node computing device, a parent job configured to produce a descendant job, wherein the node computing device is one of a plurality of node computing devices of a distributed computing system that also includes a scheduler server. In such aspects, the distributed computing system creates the descendant job, and the parent and descendant jobs are scheduled for computation on different node computing devices.