diff --git a/redash/cli/rq.py b/redash/cli/rq.py
index c103d6707d..b9a450eb44 100644
--- a/redash/cli/rq.py
+++ b/redash/cli/rq.py
@@ -5,11 +5,11 @@
 
 from click import argument
 from flask.cli import AppGroup
-from rq import Connection, Worker
+from rq import Connection
 from sqlalchemy.orm import configure_mappers
 
 from redash import rq_redis_connection
-from redash.schedule import rq_scheduler, schedule_periodic_jobs, periodic_job_definitions
+from redash.tasks import HardLimitingWorker as Worker, rq_scheduler, schedule_periodic_jobs, periodic_job_definitions
 
 manager = AppGroup(help="RQ management commands.")
 
diff --git a/redash/tasks/__init__.py b/redash/tasks/__init__.py
index 6f0d590514..e51b55b52c 100644
--- a/redash/tasks/__init__.py
+++ b/redash/tasks/__init__.py
@@ -3,3 +3,5 @@
                       refresh_schemas, cleanup_query_results, empty_schedules)
 from .alerts import check_alerts_for_query
 from .failure_report import send_aggregated_errors
+from .hard_limiting_worker import HardLimitingWorker
+from .schedule import rq_scheduler, schedule_periodic_jobs, periodic_job_definitions
diff --git a/redash/tasks/hard_limiting_worker.py b/redash/tasks/hard_limiting_worker.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..c4bb30166b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/redash/tasks/hard_limiting_worker.py
@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
+import errno
+import os
+from rq import Worker, get_current_job
+from rq.utils import utcnow
+from rq.timeouts import UnixSignalDeathPenalty, HorseMonitorTimeoutException
+from rq.job import JobStatus
+
+
+class HardLimitingWorker(Worker):
+    """
+    RQ's work horses enforce time limits by setting a timed alarm and stopping jobs
+    when they reach their time limits. However, the work horse may be entirely blocked
+    and may not respond to the alarm interrupt. Since respecting timeouts is critical
+    in Redash (if we don't respect them, workers may be infinitely stuck and as a result,
+    service may be denied for other queries), we enforce two time limits:
+    1. A soft time limit, enforced by the work horse
+    2. A hard time limit, enforced by the parent worker
+
+    The HardLimitingWorker class changes the default monitoring behavior of the default
+    RQ Worker by checking if the work horse is still busy with the job, even after
+    it should have timed out (+ a grace period of 15s). If it does, it kills the work horse.
+    """
+    grace_period = 15
+
+    def soft_limit_exceeded(self, job):
+        seconds_under_monitor = (utcnow() - self.monitor_started).seconds
+        return seconds_under_monitor > job.timeout + self.grace_period
+
+    def enforce_hard_limit(self, job):
+        self.log.warning('Job %s exceeded timeout of %ds (+%ds grace period) but work horse did not terminate it. '
+                         'Killing the work horse.', job.id, job.timeout, self.grace_period)
+        self.kill_horse()
+
+    def monitor_work_horse(self, job):
+        """The worker will monitor the work horse and make sure that it
+        either executes successfully or the status of the job is set to
+        failed
+        """
+        self.monitor_started = utcnow()
+        while True:
+            try:
+                with UnixSignalDeathPenalty(self.job_monitoring_interval, HorseMonitorTimeoutException):
+                    retpid, ret_val = os.waitpid(self._horse_pid, 0)
+                break
+            except HorseMonitorTimeoutException:
+                # Horse has not exited yet and is still running.
+                # Send a heartbeat to keep the worker alive.
+                self.heartbeat(self.job_monitoring_interval + 5)
+
+                if self.soft_limit_exceeded(job):
+                    self.enforce_hard_limit(job)
+            except OSError as e:
+                # In case we encountered an OSError due to EINTR (which is
+                # caused by a SIGINT or SIGTERM signal during
+                # os.waitpid()), we simply ignore it and enter the next
+                # iteration of the loop, waiting for the child to end.  In
+                # any other case, this is some other unexpected OS error,
+                # which we don't want to catch, so we re-raise those ones.
+                if e.errno != errno.EINTR:
+                    raise
+                # Send a heartbeat to keep the worker alive.
+                self.heartbeat()
+
+        if ret_val == os.EX_OK:  # The process exited normally.
+            return
+        job_status = job.get_status()
+        if job_status is None:  # Job completed and its ttl has expired
+            return
+        if job_status not in [JobStatus.FINISHED, JobStatus.FAILED]:
+
+            if not job.ended_at:
+                job.ended_at = utcnow()
+
+            # Unhandled failure: move the job to the failed queue
+            self.log.warning((
+                'Moving job to FailedJobRegistry '
+                '(work-horse terminated unexpectedly; waitpid returned {})'
+            ).format(ret_val))
+
+            self.handle_job_failure(
+                job,
+                exc_string="Work-horse process was terminated unexpectedly "
+                           "(waitpid returned %s)" % ret_val
+            )
diff --git a/redash/schedule.py b/redash/tasks/schedule.py
similarity index 99%
rename from redash/schedule.py
rename to redash/tasks/schedule.py
index 8a577e4c39..b1a527cf42 100644
--- a/redash/schedule.py
+++ b/redash/tasks/schedule.py
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@
                          queue_name="periodic",
                          interval=5)
 
+
 def job_id(kwargs):
     metadata = kwargs.copy()
     metadata['func'] = metadata['func'].__name__
diff --git a/tests/test_schedule.py b/tests/tasks/test_schedule.py
similarity index 92%
rename from tests/test_schedule.py
rename to tests/tasks/test_schedule.py
index 13a38b11ac..5a8b1d19b5 100644
--- a/tests/test_schedule.py
+++ b/tests/tasks/test_schedule.py
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 from unittest import TestCase
 from mock import patch, ANY
 
-from redash.schedule import rq_scheduler, schedule_periodic_jobs
+from redash.tasks.schedule import rq_scheduler, schedule_periodic_jobs
 
 class TestSchedule(TestCase):
     def setUp(self):
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ def foo():
             pass
 
         schedule_periodic_jobs([{"func": foo, "interval": 60}])
-        with patch('redash.schedule.rq_scheduler.schedule') as schedule:
+        with patch('redash.tasks.rq_scheduler.schedule') as schedule:
             schedule_periodic_jobs([{"func": foo, "interval": 60}])
             schedule.assert_not_called()