diff --git a/config/puma.rb b/config/puma.rb
index cd01f62a3bb6..3e631b48f8c2 100644
--- a/config/puma.rb
+++ b/config/puma.rb
@@ -14,7 +14,10 @@
 # terminating a worker in development environments.
 #
 worker_timeout 3600 if ENV.fetch("RAILS_ENV", "development") == "development"
-worker_timeout 12 if ENV.fetch("RAILS_ENV", "production") == "production"
+# In production a worker that misses its heartbeat is killed by the master. The
+# previous 12s was too tight under CPU pressure and caused mass worker thrash on
+# busy nodes. Default to Puma's 60s and allow tuning without an image rebuild.
+worker_timeout ENV.fetch("PUMA_WORKER_TIMEOUT", 60).to_i if ENV.fetch("RAILS_ENV", "production") == "production"
 
 worker_shutdown_timeout 30
 on_worker_boot do