In certain aspects, the invention features methods that include 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. Such an aspect also includes selectively rescheduling computation of a job other than a parent job from any one of the node computing devices to another of the node computing devices, and preventing rescheduling of the parent job unless each of the descendant jobs is completed or terminated.