Background job
Slow work the app does out of sight after you click, so you can keep going instead of waiting.
What it is
A background job handles something that takes a while, like generating a video, processing a big upload, or running an AI agent, without making the person stare at a spinner. The app replies right away ("We're working on it") and finishes the work behind the scenes.
The screen then shows progress and updates when the job is done, often with a notification.
When you ask for one, describe the status people see (queued, working, done, failed) and how they're told when it finishes.
How to ask for it
“Making the report takes forever and the page just hangs.”
“Run report generation as a background job: clicking Generate immediately shows the report as "Preparing…", the job runs out of sight, and the row updates to "Ready · Download" when done, with a toast if the user is still on the page.”
The weak prompt describes the pain; "background job" names the fix and the prompt defines the statuses people see.
You've seen this in
- CVideo exports in Canva
- GGoogle Takeout preparing your data
- LLarge file uploads continuing while you browse