diff --git a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
index c3ac3f10b35..6421c6d543b 100644
--- a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
@@ -253,6 +253,8 @@ Release 2.1.2 - UNRELEASED
     SequenceFileAsBinaryOutputFormat.WritableValueBytes by re-introducing
     missing constructors. (Zhijie Shen via acmurthy)
 
+    MAPREDUCE-5544. JobClient#getJob loads job conf twice. (Sandy Ryza)
+
 Release 2.1.1-beta - 2013-09-23
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-core/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapred/JobClient.java b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-core/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapred/JobClient.java
index 0393130ad53..89a966eb84c 100644
--- a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-core/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapred/JobClient.java
+++ b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-core/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapred/JobClient.java
@@ -173,7 +173,12 @@ public class JobClient extends CLI {
      * job completes.)
      */
     public NetworkedJob(JobStatus status, Cluster cluster) throws IOException {
-      job = Job.getInstance(cluster, status, new JobConf(status.getJobFile()));
+      this(status, cluster, new JobConf(status.getJobFile()));
+    }
+    
+    private NetworkedJob(JobStatus status, Cluster cluster, JobConf conf)
+        throws IOException {
+      this(Job.getInstance(cluster, status, conf));
     }
 
     public NetworkedJob(Job job) throws IOException {
@@ -592,7 +597,8 @@ public class JobClient extends CLI {
       if (job != null) {
         JobStatus status = JobStatus.downgrade(job.getStatus());
         if (status != null) {
-          return new NetworkedJob(status, cluster);
+          return new NetworkedJob(status, cluster,
+              new JobConf(job.getConfiguration()));
         } 
       }
     } catch (InterruptedException ie) {