1. A method to process parallel computing tasks on a distributed computing system, comprising: computing an execution plan for a parallel computing job to be executed on the distributed computing system, the distributed computing system comprising a plurality of compute nodes; generating, based on the execution plan, an ordered set of tasks, wherein the ordered set of tasks comprises: (i) configuration tasks, and (ii) execution tasks for executing the parallel computing job on the distributed computing system; and launching a distributed computing application to assign the tasks of the ordered set of tasks to the plurality of compute nodes to execute the parallel computing job on the distributed computing system.