  Coding theoretic techniques have been proposed for synchronous Gradient
Descent (GD) on multiple servers to mitigate stragglers. These techniques
provide the flexibility that the job is complete when any $k$ out of $n$
servers finish their assigned tasks. The task size on each server is found
based on the values of $k$ and $n$. However, it is assumed that all the $n$
jobs are started when the job is requested. In contrast, we assume a tiered
system, where we start with $n_1\ge k$ tasks, and on completion of $c$ tasks,
we start $n_2-n_1$ more tasks. The aim is that as long as $k$ servers can
execute their tasks, the job gets completed. This paper exploits the
flexibility that not all servers are started at the request time to obtain the
achievable task sizes on each server. The task sizes are in general lower than
starting all $n_2$ tasks at the request times thus helping achieve lower task
sizes which helps to reduce both the job completion time and the total server
utilization.
