Lead Technology Analyst - Emerging Trends

Department:

Our 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 Lead Technology Analyst supporting the Emerging Trends Team, you’ll shape how Southwest explores, tests, and learns from emerging technologies and innovative solutions. You’ll lead experiments from early opportunity development through planning, execution, evaluation, and closeout, partnering with Business Teams, Technology Partners, startups, and internal stakeholders to identify what Southwest needs to learn and design the best way to test it. You’ll navigate unfamiliar technologies and complex business challenges, bring the right partners together, and turn early ideas into structured, real-world experiments.

You’ll define success measures, guide experiments through the appropriate governance and internal processes, and keep testing focused on the questions that matter most. You’ll then translate findings into clear insights about business value, feasibility, tradeoffs, dependencies, and potential next steps, helping Business and Technology Leaders make informed investment decisions. Beyond individual experiments, you’ll strengthen the Emerging Trends Team’s overall approach by improving the frameworks, tools, and processes that help Southwest learn faster, reduce uncertainty, and shape its future technology direction. 

Additional Details

• This role involves regular travel, with frequency varying based on business needs, testing and experimentation activities, and external partnership or engagement opportunities.
• 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. 
 

Responsibilities

• Apply and teach knowledge and skills of analysis, business processes, tools, domains, project methodologies, requirements definitions, and testing to solve a range of problems
• Partner with other Technology Team members to provide advice or solutions within areas of expertise
• Identify and provide strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems and search for and seize opportunities to do more or to do things better
• Estimate effort and value for solutions
• Apply and teach business solutions with broad level knowledge about technology platforms/architectures
• Verify information and carefully review and check the accuracy of your own work and the work of others’ using dependency identification processes in technology work
• Establish or follow prioritization processes to drive work, completing work with a sense of urgency
• Express ideas, business or technical requirements clearly and concisely verbally and in writing using appropriate levels of summary and synthesis on a regular and consistent basis
• Monitor program risks, issues, and scope, ensuring the appropriate level of priority, visibility and escalation
• May perform other job duties as directed by Employee's Leaders

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Advanced knowledge of business analysis, process modeling and redesign
• Advanced knowledge of technical environments
• Advanced knowledge of software development methodologies
• Skilled in excellent partnering, communication, and negotiation in working with various Teams and/or external partners
• Ability to analyze large, complex, or vague Business or technical problems, articulating the problem or root cause, and translating the analysis into viable solution recommendations
• Ability to analyze data and trends, draw conclusions, and make recommendations based on analysis
• Ability to work effectively in a strong Customer service/team oriented environment
• Ability to research, create, and document requirements, processes, and technical specifications
• Ability to manage and prioritize multiple and widely varied work streams/tasks
• Ability to take on multiple assignments, whether administrative or project related, while maintaining a successful level of completion in all responsible work; able to mentor others to do the same
• Ability to develop, present and effectively communicate ideas and strategies to a variety of audiences, including Senior Leadership
• Ability to teach and mentor others concerning technical and business subjects

Education

• Required: High School Diploma or GED
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information systems or similar fields of study or equivalent advanced level experience

Experience

• Required: Expert-level experience, seasoned and specialized knowledge in information technology (IT) operations, programming, systems/software development or another IT related field
• Preferred: Experience leading technology experimentation, evaluating emerging technologies and solutions

• Preferred: Experience running technology proofs-of-concept start to finish

Licensing/Certification

• N/A

Physical Abilities

• 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

Other Qualifications

• 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 $148,040 per year to $ 154,200 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 Retirement Savings Plan 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: https://careers.southwestair.com/benefits

*Pay amount does not guarantee employment for any particular period of time.

**401(k) match contributions are subject to the plan’s vesting schedule and applicable IRS limits

***ProfitSharing contributions are subject to plan’s vesting schedule and are made at the discretion of the Company

Southwest Airlines is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
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