Provided herein are systems and methods for handling build-side skew. For example, a method includes computing a plurality of hash values for a join operation. The join operation uses a corresponding plurality of row sets. The plurality of hash values are sampled to detect a frequent hash value. A build-side row set is partitioned using the frequent hash value to generate a partitioned build-side row set. The build-side row set is selected from the plurality of row sets. The partitioned build-side row set is distributed to a plurality of hash-join-build (HJB) instances executing at a corresponding plurality of servers.