diff --git a/cmake/External/nccl.cmake b/cmake/External/nccl.cmake
index cb928baf3a595..160d2b648c051 100644
--- a/cmake/External/nccl.cmake
+++ b/cmake/External/nccl.cmake
@@ -15,23 +15,24 @@ if(NOT __NCCL_INCLUDED)
     # this second replacement is needed when there are multiple archs
     string(REPLACE ";-gencode" " -gencode" NVCC_GENCODE "${NVCC_GENCODE}")
 
-    if("${CMAKE_GENERATOR}" MATCHES "Make")
-      # Recursive make with jobserver for parallelism
-      set(MAKE_COMMAND "$(MAKE)")
+    if(DEFINED ENV{MAX_JOBS})
+      set(MAX_JOBS "$ENV{MAX_JOBS}")
     else()
-      if(DEFINED ENV{MAX_JOBS})
-        set(MAX_JOBS "$ENV{MAX_JOBS}")
-      else()
-        include(ProcessorCount)
-        ProcessorCount(NUM_HARDWARE_THREADS)
-        # Assume 2 hardware threads per cpu core
-        math(EXPR MAX_JOBS "${NUM_HARDWARE_THREADS} / 2")
-        # ProcessorCount might return 0, set to a positive number
-        if(MAX_JOBS LESS 2)
-            set(MAX_JOBS 2)
-        endif()
+      include(ProcessorCount)
+      ProcessorCount(NUM_HARDWARE_THREADS)
+      # Assume 2 hardware threads per cpu core
+      math(EXPR MAX_JOBS "${NUM_HARDWARE_THREADS} / 2")
+      # ProcessorCount might return 0, set to a positive number
+      if(MAX_JOBS LESS 2)
+        set(MAX_JOBS 2)
       endif()
+    endif()
 
+    if("${CMAKE_GENERATOR}" MATCHES "Make")
+      # Recursive make with jobserver for parallelism, and also put a load limit
+      # here to avoid flaky OOM, https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Parallel.html
+      set(MAKE_COMMAND "$(MAKE)" "-l${MAX_JOBS}")
+    else()
       # Parallel build with CPU load limit to avoid oversubscription
       set(MAKE_COMMAND "make" "-j${MAX_JOBS}" "-l${MAX_JOBS}")
     endif()