A system for automatically segmenting the compilation of a large Java project under a controller node to a grid of slave nodes so as to reduce build time. A build tree scanner at the controller node sizes the number of files in the project and the length of each source file. Each slave node has a complete and synchronized set of all compilable units in the project. The controller node automatically segments the source files into a number of filesets commensurate with the number and resource capacities of slave nodes available for the build, allocates the filesets to the slave nodes, and automatically generates build filesets from a master dependency tree built from dependency trees constructed by each slave node. The build sets are then equitably allocated to the slave nodes. Then the targets are reaped and placed on the controller node, which performs post-compilation tasks.