diff --git a/ui/build/config.go b/ui/build/config.go
index 92aee4d8a..c8670ae2e 100644
--- a/ui/build/config.go
+++ b/ui/build/config.go
@@ -767,6 +767,10 @@ func (c *configImpl) StartRBE() bool {
 	return true
 }
 
+func (c *configImpl) UseRemoteBuild() bool {
+	return c.UseGoma() || c.UseRBE()
+}
+
 // RemoteParallel controls how many remote jobs (i.e., commands which contain
 // gomacc) are run in parallel.  Note the parallelism of all other jobs is
 // still limited by Parallel()
diff --git a/ui/build/kati.go b/ui/build/kati.go
index a7799eadc..307475a9d 100644
--- a/ui/build/kati.go
+++ b/ui/build/kati.go
@@ -89,6 +89,10 @@ func runKati(ctx Context, config Config, extraSuffix string, args []string, envF
 		args = append(args, "--empty_ninja_file")
 	}
 
+	if config.UseRemoteBuild() {
+		args = append(args, "--default_pool=local_pool")
+	}
+
 	cmd := Command(ctx, config, "ckati", executable, args...)
 	cmd.Sandbox = katiSandbox
 	pipe, err := cmd.StdoutPipe()
diff --git a/ui/build/ninja.go b/ui/build/ninja.go
index 66750d611..d5baafe75 100644
--- a/ui/build/ninja.go
+++ b/ui/build/ninja.go
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ func runNinja(ctx Context, config Config) {
 	args = append(args, config.NinjaArgs()...)
 
 	var parallel int
-	if config.UseGoma() || config.UseRBE() {
+	if config.UseRemoteBuild() {
 		parallel = config.RemoteParallel()
 	} else {
 		parallel = config.Parallel()