Per recent Spark docs, you can't actually set the heap size that way. You need to use `spark.executor.memory` to do so. https://spark.apache.org/docs/2.1.1/configuration.html#runtime-environment , Just an FYI, Spark 2.1.1 doesn't allow setting the heap space in `extraJavaOptions`: java.lang.Exception: spark.executor.extraJavaOptions is not allowed to specify max heap memory settings (was ''-Xmx20g''). Use spark.executor.memory instead. ... View more