# Background jobs and scheduled work

Source: https://imqueue.org/blog/topics/jobs/

Articles on background jobs and background tasks in Node.js and nodejs services: delayed calls, scheduled work, retry backoff, recurring sweeps, and how @imqueue/job compares with BullMQ.

4 articles tagged `jobs`, newest first.

- [Nothing threw, and the job never ran: silent failures in a Node.js message queue](https://imqueue.org/blog/silent-failures-nodejs-message-queue/) — 2026-08-21, Andrii Glushko: A send() that resolves with a message id nobody will ever deliver. A push() that returns cleanly onto a queue redis refused to write. Neither throws, and neither can — the caller has already moved on by the time redis answers. That silence is over: here is what each of those failures now writes to the log instead, and the one upgrade note that costs you a stack trace. — [markdown](https://imqueue.org/blog/silent-failures-nodejs-message-queue/index.md)
- [Delayed and scheduled work without adding a job system](https://imqueue.org/blog/scheduled-work-without-a-job-system/) — 2026-07-25, Mykhailo Stadnyk: "Send that email in 24 hours" usually turns into a second deployment, a second data model, and a job record shadowing a service method you already wrote. Often the message queue you already run can just do it. Here's how deferral works as a parameter, and what it costs. — [markdown](https://imqueue.org/blog/scheduled-work-without-a-job-system/index.md)
- [BullMQ alternatives for Node.js: an honest 2026 guide](https://imqueue.org/blog/bullmq-alternatives/) — 2026-07-22, Mykhailo Stadnyk: BullMQ is the default Redis job queue for Node.js — but it isn't the only choice. Here's an even-handed map of the alternatives (Bee-Queue, pg-boss, Agenda, @imqueue/job and more), what each is actually good at, and how to pick. — [markdown](https://imqueue.org/blog/bullmq-alternatives/index.md)
- [@imqueue/job vs BullMQ: Redis job queues compared](https://imqueue.org/blog/imqueue-vs-bullmq/) — 2026-06-12, Andrii Glushko: Both are Redis-backed job queues for Node.js. @imqueue/job is small, safe-by-default and scheduling-capable; BullMQ is the feature-rich one. Here's an honest split — plus the thing @imqueue does that BullMQ doesn't. — [markdown](https://imqueue.org/blog/imqueue-vs-bullmq/index.md)

## Other topics

- [Message queues](https://imqueue.org/blog/topics/queue/) — 16 articles
- [RPC](https://imqueue.org/blog/topics/rpc/) — 14 articles
- [Architecture](https://imqueue.org/blog/topics/architecture/) — 11 articles
- [Patterns](https://imqueue.org/blog/topics/patterns/) — 11 articles
- [Comparisons](https://imqueue.org/blog/topics/comparison/) — 9 articles
- [Developer experience](https://imqueue.org/blog/topics/dx/) — 8 articles
- [Type safety](https://imqueue.org/blog/topics/types/) — 7 articles
- [Performance](https://imqueue.org/blog/topics/performance/) — 6 articles
- [Resilience](https://imqueue.org/blog/topics/resilience/) — 6 articles
- [Transports](https://imqueue.org/blog/topics/transport/) — 6 articles
- [Message delivery](https://imqueue.org/blog/topics/delivery/) — 5 articles
- [Typed clients](https://imqueue.org/blog/topics/clients/) — 4 articles

All articles: [https://imqueue.org/blog/](https://imqueue.org/blog/) — [markdown](https://imqueue.org/blog/index.md)