diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.yml b/.gitlab-ci.yml
index f6db473dc11da76481aaf92173170dbd1311f269..338f11ba00cd225e8233d41dbe3b21b40b2819e4 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci.yml
+++ b/.gitlab-ci.yml
@@ -282,7 +282,7 @@ stages:
         spack clean -a
         spack concretize -f
         spack env depfile -o Makefile
-        make -j 16
+        make -j 8
         make clean
         # spack mirror add key4hep-nightly s3://key4hep-nightly
         # spack buildcache keys --install --trust