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:
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
Southwest’s Observability Accelerators & AI Pod creates reusable cloud and software capabilities that make telemetry easier to deploy, visualize, and act upon. Its products span OpenTelemetry onboarding, dashboard generation, migration tooling, AI-agent observability, anomaly detection, AI-assisted investigation, and root-cause analysis for development and operations teams.
As Senior Software Engineer – Observability Accelerators & AI, you’ll design, develop, test, and maintain production-grade software and AWS-native solutions—not just deployment automation. You’ll work with services such as Lambda, Step Functions, EventBridge, SQS, and API Gateway; build reliable CI/CD and Infrastructure as Code; and apply strong fundamentals across logs, metrics, traces, alerting, Grafana, CloudWatch, Prometheus, and OpenTelemetry. You’ll also integrate AI-enabled workflows that improve developer productivity, operational efficiency, and observability outcomes.
- Advanced experience in designing, writing program code, testing, documenting, and implementing functionally appropriate, technically sound, and well-integrated application systems in accordance with Customer requirements, organizational methodologies, and standards. Identifies and prevents production problems and implement immediate resolution efforts across technology areas. Mentoring Software Engineers, holistic vision of organization and impact, focusing on “shift left” activities.
- Drive the technical direction and feature roadmap of large-scale cloud systems
- Serve as a technical lead contributing to and directing the efforts of development teams, including internal and external team members
- Determines operational feasibility by evaluating analysis, problem definition, requirements, solution development, and proposed solutions
- Drives detailed definition of feature requirements through discussions with product managers and customers
- Supports continuous improvement by investigating alternatives and new technologies
- Prepares and installs solutions by determining and designing system specifications, standards, and programming
- Evaluates code to ensure that it is valid, is properly structured, meets industry standards, and is compatible with browsers, devices, or operating systems
- Mentor Software Engineers to allow for skill/knowledge development through advice, coaching, and training opportunities
- Update job knowledge by studying state-of-the-art development tools, programming techniques and computing equipment; participating in educational opportunities; reading professional publications; maintaining personal networks; participating in professional organizations
- May perform other job duties as directed by Employee's Leaders
- Advanced knowledge of software development methodologies, practices, concepts, and technologies obtained through formal training and / or work experience
- Proactively shares knowledge and skills of software development and testing to solve a range of problems
- Advanced knowledge of at least one required programming language
- Excellent partnering, communication, negotiation skills, and execution in working with various Technology or partner Teams
- Ability to articulate (verbally / visually) ideas, approach, concepts, options, risk, impact, and provides guidance to technical, non-technical, and Leadership audiences
- Ability to lead multiple assignments, whether administrative or project related, while maintaining a successful level of completion in all responsible work
- Ability to mentor others
- Ability to lead ideating, presentations, mentoring and group-thinking sessions
- Ability to influence without authority
- Required: Required: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems or related field and/or equivalent formal training
- Required: Advanced-level experience, seasoned and specialized knowledge in:
- Software development and methodologies
- 5-7 years of relevant work-related experience
- AWS Lambda; Step Functions; EventBridge; SQS; API Gateway; Python or similar; Terraform; CloudFormation; CI/CD; Grafana; CloudWatch; Prometheus; OpenTelemetry; AI-enabled workflows
Preferred:
Automated testing; machine learning; anomaly detection; SRE; cost optimization
- 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, a related field, or equivalent formal training
- 5-7 years of relevant work-related experience
- Advanced experience in software development and software development methodologies
- Advanced knowledge of at least one programming language
- Experience with AWS Lambda, Step Functions, EventBridge, SQS, and API Gateway
- Experience with Python or a similar programming language
- Experience with Terraform and CloudFormation
- Experience with CI/CD
- Experience with Grafana, CloudWatch, Prometheus, and OpenTelemetry
- Experience with AI-enabled workflows
- Ability to lead assignments and development teams
- Ability to mentor software engineers
- Excellent communication, negotiation, and collaboration skills
- Ability to work extended hours as needed
- Experience with automated testing
- Experience with machine learning and anomaly detection
- Experience with SRE
- Experience with cost optimization
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.
