Department:
TechnologyOur Company Promise
We are committed to provide our Employees a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth. Creativity and innovation are encouraged for improving the effectiveness of Southwest Airlines. Above all, Employees will be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that they are expected to share externally with every Southwest Customer.
Job Description:
As a Data Engineer on the AIDT Delivery & Operations Team, you’ll operate in a hybrid role that blends hands‑on data engineering with impactful business and data analytics. Working with limited supervision, you’ll design, build, and manage scalable data pipelines—including streaming data and API integrations—while delivering analysis that drives meaningful decision‑making. You’ll provide end‑to‑end design guidance for analytic solutions, deploy pipelines into higher environments, and integrate with SQL‑based systems to ensure reliable, production‑ready data products. Partnering with focused groups across Southwest, you’ll help create unique data infrastructure, run tests to isolate issues, and refine systems to adapt to evolving business needs. By combining technical execution with analytical curiosity, you’ll support high‑quality data solutions that power critical operational and enterprise outcomes.
Additional details
This role is offered as a remote workplace position, which may require travel for training, meetings, conferences, etc. Outside of those required visits, the majority of your working time may be spent in a remote location, away from our Corporate Campus. Please note, while this is a remote position, there is a limited group of states or localities ineligible for Employees to regularly perform their work. Those ineligible locations are: Alaska, California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Washington, Wyoming, and Puerto Rico.
U.S. citizenship or current authorization to work in the U.S. required and no current or future work authorization sponsorship available.
We’re committed to fair hiring practices and to making employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, age, military or veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other legally protected characteristics.
- Assemble large, complex sets of data that meet non-functional and functional business requirements
- Identify, design and implement internal process improvements including re-designing infrastructure for greater scalability, optimizing data delivery, and automating manual processes
- Build required infrastructure for optimal extraction, transformation and loading of data from various data sources using AWS and SQL technologies
- Build analytical tools to utilize the data pipeline, providing actionable insight into key business performance metrics including operational efficiency and customer acquisition
- Work with stakeholders including data, design, product and executive teams and assisting them with data-related technical issues
- Work with stakeholders including the Executive, Product, Data and Design teams to support their data infrastructure needs while assisting with data-related technical issues
- Generate or adapt equipment and technology to serve user needs
- May perform other job duties as directed by Employee's Leaders
- Knowledge of the practical application of engineering science and technology, including applying principles, techniques, procedures, and equipment to the design and production of various goods and services
- Knowledge of design techniques, tools, and principles involved in production of precision technical plans, blueprints, drawings, and models
- Ability to use logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems
- Ability to understand new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making
- Skilled in identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions
- Ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem
- Ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events)
- Ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources)
- Ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations)
- Ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material
- Required: High School Diploma or GED
- Required: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information systems or similar fields of study or equivalent advanced level experience
- Required: Intermediate level experience, fully functioning broad knowledge in:
- Cloud infrastructure, DataLake
- ETL experience ensuring source to target data integrity
- Various filetypes (Delimited Text, Fixed Width, XML, JSON, Parque).
- ServiceBus, setting up ingress and egress within a subscription, or relevant AWS Cloud services administrative experience.
- Unit Testing, Code Quality tools, CI/CD Technologies, Security and Container Technologies
- Agile development experience and Agile ceremonies and practices
- Preferred: Proficiency in Python (including PySpark) and SQL
- Preferred: Experience using cloud computing tools, particularly AWS Lambda, AWS Glue, and EMR (or equivalent cloud data‑processing services)
- Preferred: Experience ingesting real‑time streaming data using tools such as Confluent Kafka
- Preferred: Experience orchestrating ETL workflows using AWS Step Functions or EventBridge
- Preferred: Familiarity with Data Warehousing methodologies and Relational Databases
- Preferred: Experience developing robust data pipelines with error handling, monitoring, and quality checks
- Preferred: Strong knowledge of modern data formats such as Parquet
- Preferred: Ability to perform Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) to assess data quality, identify patterns, and generate actionable insights
- N/A
- Ability to perform work duties from [limited space work station/desk/office area] for extended periods of time
- Ability to communicate and interact with others in the English language to meet the demands of the job
- Ability to use a computer and other office productivity tools with sufficient speed and accuracy to meet the demands of the job
- Must maintain a well-groomed appearance per Company appearance standards as described in established guidelines
- Must be a U.S. citizen or have authorization to work in the United States as defined by the Immigration Reform Act of 1986
- Must be at least 18 years of age
- Must be able to comply with Company attendance standards as described in established guidelines
- Must be able to travel and /or attend Company and non-Company facilities and remote locations such as remote-based offices as necessary
Pay & Benefits
- Competitive market salary from $114,200 - 126,900 per year* depending on qualifications and experience. For eligible Leadership and individual contributor roles, additional bonus opportunities are available and awarded at the discretion of the company.
Benefits you’ll love
- Fly for free, as a privilege, on any open seat on all Southwest flights (your eligible dependents too)
- Southwest will help fund your 401(k) retirement savings with Company contributions up to 9.3% of your eligible earnings**
- Potential for annual ProfitSharing contribution in the Southwest Retirement Savings Plan- when Southwest profits, you profit***
- Competitive health insurance for you and your eligible dependents (including pets)
- Southwest offers health plan coverage options that start from the very first day of employment. You will have 30 days to select and enroll in your health plan with coverage retroactively available to your first day of employment.
- Explore more Benefits you’ll love: careers.southwestair.com/benefits
*Pay amount does not guarantee employment for any particular period of time.
Southwest Airlines is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
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Skills Required
- High School Diploma or GED
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems or equivalent experience
- U.S. citizenship or current authorization to work in the U.S.; no sponsorship available
- Must be at least 18 years of age
- Intermediate level experience with cloud infrastructure and Data Lake architecture
- ETL experience ensuring source-to-target data integrity
- Experience with various file types (Delimited Text, Fixed Width, XML, JSON, Parquet)
- Experience with ServiceBus or relevant cloud services administrative experience (setting up ingress/egress)
- Familiarity with Unit Testing, Code Quality tools, CI/CD technologies, security and container technologies
- Agile development experience and participation in Agile ceremonies and practices
- Ability to travel for training, meetings, or conferences as needed
- Proficiency in Python (including PySpark) and SQL
- Experience with AWS Lambda, AWS Glue, EMR or equivalent cloud data-processing services
- Experience ingesting real-time streaming data (e.g., Confluent Kafka)
- Experience orchestrating ETL workflows with AWS Step Functions or EventBridge
- Familiarity with Data Warehousing methodologies and relational databases
- Experience developing robust data pipelines with error handling, monitoring, and quality checks
- Ability to perform Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) to assess data quality and produce insights
Southwest Airlines Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Southwest Airlines and has not been reviewed or approved by Southwest Airlines.
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Pay Growth & Progression — Pay progression is described as materially improving after major 2024 union agreements, especially for pilots and flight attendants. Compensation satisfaction is framed as stronger over time as step scales and seniority accumulate.
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Retirement Support — Retirement support stands out through a dollar-for-dollar 401(k) match and the presence of profit-sharing contributions that can add to retirement savings. Stock purchase access is also positioned as an additional ownership-oriented component of total rewards.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Wellbeing and lifestyle value is elevated by extensive space-available travel privileges and broad travel-related discounts that can materially offset personal travel costs. Recognition mechanisms like points-based rewards are also positioned as an added lifestyle-oriented perk.
Southwest Airlines Insights
What We Do
At Southwest Airlines we connect People to what’s important in their lives—that also means connecting our Employees to what’s important in their lives! Our Employees value the opportunity to work hard, be creative, and have fun on the job. Southwest Airlines recognizes, respects, and values differences. By fostering a culture that embraces and utilizes our diversity, we create competitive advantages in teamwork and innovation that contribute to our overall success.
