pdfservices Operation Timed Out when generating PDF

I am calling pdfservices using the pdfservices-sdk-2.1.0.jar and I more often than not receive a timeout. The error received is: 

com.adobe.pdfservices.operation.exception.ServiceApiException: description ='Operation timed out; transactionId=kfvgjemcquOgWIkQZSVgjcjHkyTAg8yL'; requestTrackingId='WDwted6OPYfluBO3fDBwFbhlfNKS4eLY'; statusCode=500; errorCode=REQUEST_TIMEOUT

at com.adobe.pdfservices.operation.pdfops.DocumentMergeOperation.execute(DocumentMergeOperation.java:145) ~[pdfservices-sdk-2.1.0.jar:?]

The error occurs in the CPFApi class, method cpfStatusApi. 

Sometimes the .docx to .pdf conversion works fine, but more frequently it will hit the timeout problem. On initial system start-up, it will frequently convert one document, then if I run the identical job again it will run into the timeout problem. 

The method that it's in when the timeout occurs is (in the CPFApi class):

    public static <T> HttpResponse<T> cpfStatusApi(InternalExecutionContext context,

                                                   String location,

                                                   Class<T> responseType) {

        BaseHttpRequest baseHttpRequest = (BaseHttpRequest) context.getBaseRequestFromRequestContext(RequestKey.STATUS);

        baseHttpRequest.withTemplate(location);

        HttpClient httpClient = HttpClientFactory.getDefaultHttpClient();

        HttpResponse<T> response =

                httpClient.send(baseHttpRequest, responseType);

        // Time bound polling

        long startTimeMs = System.currentTimeMillis();

        int count = 1;

        while (response.getStatusCode() == ACCEPTED_SUCCESS_STATUS_CODE) {

            LOGGER.debug("Polling for status ");

            long retryIntervalMs = (count > 5) ? DELAY_POLLING_INTERVAL : POLLING_INTERVAL;

            if (System.currentTimeMillis() - startTimeMs > TIME_LIMIT_MS) {

                LOGGER.debug("Polling Timeout reached. Something's wrong, file operation took too long");

                throw new OperationException("Operation execution has timed out!",

                        StringUtil.getRequestIdFromLocation(location), POLLING_TIMEOUT_STATUS_CODE);

            } else {

                // Keep polling

                try {

                    TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.sleep(retryIntervalMs);

                } catch (InterruptedException ex) {

                    throw new SdkException("Thread interrupted while waiting for operation execution status!!", ex);

                }

                response = httpClient.send(baseHttpRequest, responseType);

                count++;

            }

        }

        return response;

    }

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Alan