Error dialing backend: EOF (Google Kubernetes Engine)

Summary

I run gitlab and gitlab-runner on kubernetes. From time to time we get errors like this one:

Running with gitlab-runner 10.6.0 (a3543a27)
  on Kubernetes Runner 7974b466
Using Kubernetes namespace: gitlab-runner-jobs
Using Kubernetes executor with image node:9.7-alpine ...
Waiting for pod gitlab-runner-jobs/runner-7974b466-project-458-concurrent-02vczw to be running, status is Pending
ERROR: Job failed (system failure): error dialing backend: EOF

Unfortunately I don't know what else to tell you about this: It happens from time to time.

Actual behavior

What actually happens The job fails and leaves only this very short error message.

Expected behavior

I expect the job to start.

Possible related issue:

https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/118670567