The Role
Leads the Observability Accelerators and AI team, setting enterprise technical direction for observability, SRE practices, reusable onboarding frameworks, OpenTelemetry, cloud platforms, and AI-powered incident resolution. Manages teams across locations, drives platform-as-a-product adoption, partners with Architecture, Security, Product, and business stakeholders, and oversees delivery, support, budgeting, talent development, and cross-functional technology initiatives.
Summary Generated by Built In
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:
About Us
At Southwest Airlines, we believe that flying should feel like freedom. For over 50 years, we’ve been connecting people to what matters most with low fares, legendary hospitality, and a heart for service. Our culture is built on the principles of fun, friendliness, and family, making us one of the most admired workplaces in the world.
If you’re passionate about making a difference, love working in a fast-paced environment, and want to help millions of travelers reach their destinations with a smile, Southwest Airlines is the place for you. Here, your career can truly take flight.
Job Summary
- The Observability Accelerators & AI Pod builds enterprise observability capabilities (AMG/AMP/CloudWatch, OpenTelemetry) and AI-based alerting and incident-resolution accelerators that reduce time-to-value for development and operations teams across Southwest — including telemetry and governance for AI/agentic systems, and AI-assisted investigation and root-cause analysis capabilities that reduce Mean Time to Recover (MTTR).
- As Manager Technology – Observability Accelerators & AI, you'll lead a high-performing team building reusable onboarding frameworks, OpenTelemetry deployment patterns, and AI-powered operational intelligence. You'll set technical direction for observability and SRE practices enterprise-wide, drive platform-as-a-product execution, and align US and India teams, Architecture, Security, and Product partners through ambiguity.
- Provide a People-focused approach to Technology Leadership. Apply department/enterprise business knowledge to ensure value alignment. Accountable for the delivery and support of solutions and services that are technically and functionally solid, well integrated, comply with technical strategy, and meet or exceed Customer requirements.
Model the Southwest Way
- Guide and lead team members using SWA talent management practices to coach, develop, and engage employees
- Adhere to Company values and competencies to foster a culture of inclusion, recognition, and support of a safe work environment
- Invest in leadership and self-growth through participating in continuous learning and development
Responsibilities
- Lead, support, and influence the achievement of the mission, goals and objectives of the department and organization
- Participate fully in organizational processes and initiatives, i.e. performance management, interviewing, budgeting, training, etc.
- Lead the resolution of organization, team and individual issues, making appropriate decisions
- Develop and execute strategies and processes to improve performance and the value of products and services provided
- Lead cross-functional Teams to deliver solutions and services to meet enterprise needs
- Provide Technical thought Leadership related to assigned functional areas
- Deliver technology solutions using best practices to achieve maximum Team productivity while delivering high-quality products
- Stay abreast of emerging trends, processes, and solutions related to assigned responsibilities
- Build strong, collaborative relationships and credibility while influencing and driving change across respective Business and Technology Teams
- Work with Technology and business partners to measure financial benefits and demonstrable business value
- May perform other job duties as directed by Employee's Leaders
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
- Knowledge of business/Leadership principals, including planning, organizing, directing, developing, and supervising
- Knowledge of personnel practices and regulations
- Knowledge of software development practices, concepts, methodologies, tools and trends
- Proficient knowledge of project management methodologies
- Skilled in excellent partnering, negotiation and communication in order to facilitate interactions with business Customers and technology teams
- Ability to provide tactical leadership for Team(s)
- Ability to use appropriate motivation and influence techniques to achieve desired Team results
- Ability to set and manage stakeholder expectations
- Ability to deliver quality projects on time and within budget
- Ability to manage projects using the organization's project management methodology
Education
- Required: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems or related field and/or equivalent formal training
Experience
- Demonstrated experience in directly or indirectly leading team(s)
- Fully functioning, broad knowledge in:
- Business and/or Information Technology environment
- Leading teams and providing work direction
- 8-12 years relevant work-related / leadership experience
- Preferred:
- Observability and SRE tooling depth — OpenTelemetry, Grafana, Prometheus, CloudWatch
- Cloud-native platform engineering — AWS, CI/CD, and Infrastructure-as-Code
- AI/agent telemetry and AI-assisted operations — anomaly detection, root-cause analysis
- Platform-as-a-product execution and adoption strategy
- Incident management, SLOs, and reliability engineering practices
- FinOps and vendor/contract management for cloud platforms
- Airline, regulated-enterprise, or 24x7 operations experience
- Leading enterprise observability, SRE, or platform engineering teams at scale
- Building AI-assisted operational or telemetry capabilities
- Hiring, mentoring, and growing software or platform engineers
- Managing engineering teams across multiple time zones
- Driving enterprise modernization or self-service platform adoption
Other Qualifications
- Must meet confidentiality expectations as to confidential, proprietary and sensitive Company information
- Ability to work extended hours as needed
Southwest Airlines is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
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Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent formal training
- Experience directly or indirectly leading teams
- Broad knowledge of business and information technology environments
- Experience leading teams and providing work direction
- 8-12 years of relevant work-related or leadership experience
- Knowledge of leadership principles, including planning, organizing, directing, developing, and supervising
- Knowledge of personnel practices and regulations
- Knowledge of software development practices, concepts, methodologies, tools, and trends
- Proficiency with project management methodologies
- Excellent partnering, negotiation, and communication skills
- Ability to provide tactical leadership for teams
- Ability to manage stakeholder expectations and deliver quality projects on time and within budget
- Ability to manage projects using the organization's project management methodology
- Observability and SRE tooling experience with OpenTelemetry, Grafana, Prometheus, or CloudWatch
- Cloud-native platform engineering experience with AWS, CI/CD, and Infrastructure-as-Code
- Experience with AI or agent telemetry, anomaly detection, or AI-assisted operations
- Experience with platform-as-a-product execution and adoption strategy
- Experience with incident management, SLOs, and reliability engineering practices
- Experience with FinOps and vendor or contract management for cloud platforms
- Experience leading enterprise observability, SRE, or platform engineering teams at scale
- Experience hiring, mentoring, and developing software or platform engineers
- Experience managing engineering teams across multiple time zones
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.
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The Company
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.
