diff --git a/internal/linker/link_node_modules.ts b/internal/linker/link_node_modules.ts
index 67c2b37e12..c6a5cbcce1 100644
--- a/internal/linker/link_node_modules.ts
+++ b/internal/linker/link_node_modules.ts
@@ -24,17 +24,21 @@ Include as much of the build output as you can without disclosing anything confi
   `);
 }
 
-function symlink(target: string, path: string) {
-  if (fs.existsSync(path)) {
+async function symlink(target: string, path: string) {
+  log_verbose(`symlink( ${path} -> ${target} )`);
+  // Use junction on Windows since symlinks require elevated permissions.
+  // We only link to directories so junctions work for us.
+  try{
+    await fs.promises.symlink(target, path, 'junction');
+  } catch(e){
+    if(e.code !== 'ENOENT'){
+      throw e;
+    }
     // We assume here that the path is already linked to the correct target.
     // Could add some logic that asserts it here, but we want to avoid an extra
     // filesystem access so we should only do it under some kind of strict mode.
-    return;
   }
-  log_verbose(`symlink( ${path} -> ${target} )`);
-  // Use junction on Windows since symlinks require elevated permissions.
-  // We only link to directories so junctions work for us.
-  fs.symlinkSync(target, path, 'junction');
+
   if (VERBOSE_LOGS) {
     // Be verbose about creating a bad symlink
     // Maybe this should fail in production as well, but again we want to avoid
@@ -157,11 +161,25 @@ export class Runfiles {
 // TypeScript lib.es5.d.ts has a mistake: JSON.parse does accept Buffer.
 declare global {
   interface JSON {
-    parse(b: Buffer): any;
+    parse(b: {toString:()=>string}): any;
+  }
+}
+
+// There is no fs.promises.exists function because 
+// node core is of the opinion that exists is always too racey to rely on.
+async function exists(p:string){
+  try{
+    await fs.promises.stat(p)
+    return true;
+  } catch(e){
+    if(e.code === 'ENOENT'){
+      return false;
+    }
+    throw e;
   }
 }
 
-export function main(args: string[], runfiles: Runfiles) {
+export async function main(args: string[], runfiles: Runfiles) {
   if (!args || args.length < 1)
     throw new Error('link_node_modules.js requires one argument: modulesManifest path');
 
@@ -189,7 +207,7 @@ export function main(args: string[], runfiles: Runfiles) {
   }
 
   // Create the $pwd/node_modules directory that node will resolve from
-  symlink(rootDir, 'node_modules');
+  await symlink(rootDir, 'node_modules');
   process.chdir(rootDir);
 
   // Symlinks to packages need to reach back to the workspace/runfiles directory
@@ -197,29 +215,41 @@ export function main(args: string[], runfiles: Runfiles) {
   const runfilesRelative = runfiles.dir ? path.relative('.', runfiles.dir) : undefined;
 
   // Now add symlinks to each of our first-party packages so they appear under the node_modules tree
-  for (const m of Object.keys(modules)) {
+  const links = []
+
+  const linkModule = async (name:string,modulePath:string)=>{
     let target: string|undefined;
 
     // Look in the runfiles first
     // TODO: this could be a method in the Runfiles class
     if (runfiles.manifest) {
-      target = runfiles.lookupDirectory(modules[m]);
+      target = runfiles.lookupDirectory(modulePath);
     } else if (runfilesRelative) {
-      target = path.join(runfilesRelative, modules[m]);
+      target = path.join(runfilesRelative, modulePath);
     }
 
     // It sucks that we have to do a FS call here.
     // TODO: could we know which packages are statically linked??
-    if (!target || !fs.existsSync(target)) {
+    if (!target || !await exists(target)) {
       // Try the execroot
-      target = path.join(workspaceRelative, toWorkspaceDir(modules[m]));
+      target = path.join(workspaceRelative, toWorkspaceDir(modulePath));
     }
-    symlink(target, m);
+
+    await symlink(target, name);
   }
 
+  for (const m of Object.keys(modules)) {
+    links.push(linkModule(m,modules[m]))
+  }
+
+  await Promise.all(links);
+
   return 0;
 }
 
 if (require.main === module) {
-  process.exitCode = main(process.argv.slice(2), new Runfiles());
+   (async ()=>{
+    process.exitCode = await main(process.argv.slice(2), new Runfiles());
+   })();
 }
+