diff --git a/test/e2e/common/node/container_probe.go b/test/e2e/common/node/container_probe.go
index 239b76aead0..529e2225e31 100644
--- a/test/e2e/common/node/container_probe.go
+++ b/test/e2e/common/node/container_probe.go
@@ -32,6 +32,7 @@ import (
 	"k8s.io/kubernetes/test/e2e/framework"
 	e2eevents "k8s.io/kubernetes/test/e2e/framework/events"
 	e2epod "k8s.io/kubernetes/test/e2e/framework/pod"
+	e2eskipper "k8s.io/kubernetes/test/e2e/framework/skipper"
 	testutils "k8s.io/kubernetes/test/utils"
 
 	"github.com/onsi/ginkgo"
@@ -214,6 +215,9 @@ var _ = SIGDescribe("Probing container", func() {
 		Description: A Pod is created with liveness probe with a Exec action on the Pod. If the liveness probe call does not return within the timeout specified, liveness probe MUST restart the Pod.
 	*/
 	ginkgo.It("should be restarted with an exec liveness probe with timeout [NodeConformance]", func() {
+		// The ExecProbeTimeout feature gate exists to allow backwards-compatibility with pre-1.20 cluster behaviors, where livenessProbe timeouts were ignored
+		// If ExecProbeTimeout feature gate is disabled, timeout enforcement for exec livenessProbes is disabled, so we should skip this test
+		e2eskipper.SkipUnlessExecProbeTimeoutEnabled()
 		cmd := []string{"/bin/sh", "-c", "sleep 600"}
 		livenessProbe := &v1.Probe{
 			Handler:             execHandler([]string{"/bin/sh", "-c", "sleep 10"}),
diff --git a/test/e2e/framework/skipper/skipper.go b/test/e2e/framework/skipper/skipper.go
index 265dd0afa6e..dbe0214a9fa 100644
--- a/test/e2e/framework/skipper/skipper.go
+++ b/test/e2e/framework/skipper/skipper.go
@@ -46,7 +46,10 @@ import (
 // New local storage types to support local storage capacity isolation
 var localStorageCapacityIsolation featuregate.Feature = "LocalStorageCapacityIsolation"
 
-var downwardAPIHugePages featuregate.Feature = "DownwardAPIHugePages"
+var (
+	downwardAPIHugePages featuregate.Feature = "DownwardAPIHugePages"
+	execProbeTimeout     featuregate.Feature = "ExecProbeTimeout"
+)
 
 func skipInternalf(caller int, format string, args ...interface{}) {
 	msg := fmt.Sprintf(format, args...)
@@ -145,6 +148,12 @@ func SkipUnlessDownwardAPIHugePagesEnabled() {
 	}
 }
 
+func SkipUnlessExecProbeTimeoutEnabled() {
+	if !utilfeature.DefaultFeatureGate.Enabled(execProbeTimeout) {
+		skipInternalf(1, "Only supported when %v feature is enabled", execProbeTimeout)
+	}
+}
+
 // SkipIfMissingResource skips if the gvr resource is missing.
 func SkipIfMissingResource(dynamicClient dynamic.Interface, gvr schema.GroupVersionResource, namespace string) {
 	resourceClient := dynamicClient.Resource(gvr).Namespace(namespace)