The Role
Leads development teams in designing, building, testing, deploying, and operating reliable cloud-native software. Owns platform architecture for telemetry, observability, evaluations, and Agentic AI recommendations. Provides technical direction for Python backend systems, AWS services, distributed architectures, security, scalability, CI/CD, DevSecOps, and performance. Mentors engineers, governs architecture and engineering standards, manages technical debt, and communicates priorities and tradeoffs to stakeholders and leadership.
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:
Job Summary
- Lead and motivate a Team of developers in the planning, delivery, and operation of highly reliable software. Accountable for the technical quality of the software that the Development Team produces and closely collaborates with the Business and other Stakeholders to ensure software meets functional and non-functional expectations. Act as an interface between the Development Team and Leadership, ensuring capacity and skillsets are aligned to meet ongoing delivery expectations. Time is allocated across Project Leadership, Technical Leadership/Mentoring, and Software Development/System Engineering.
Responsibilities
- Provide accurate development estimates in support of feasibility assessments and planned development activities
- Create, maintain, review and approve application designs in collaboration with Solution Architects and shared services Teams, ensuring alignment to the appropriate solution architectures and taking tradeoffs into account
- Develop, maintain, and review software with a focus on quality and maintainability
- Develop, maintain, review, and execute unit, functional, and integration tests with a focus on automation and test-driven development
- Provide technical oversight for performance testing, ensuring plan and outcomes align to expected non-functional requirements
- Plan and oversee application deployment activities and sequencing in non-production and production environments
- Investigate new technologies that could improve the applications and development activities
- Identify and resolve technical debt as appropriate, weighing the development effort against the value returned
- Mentor and coach Development Team on relevant architecture, design, development, and operations topics
- Evaluate code to ensure that it is valid, is properly structured, meets industry standards, and is compatible with browsers, devices, or operating systems
- May perform other job duties as directed by Employee's Leaders
- Architecture and development of large-scale cloud-native platforms and distributed systems (8+ years). AI/ML knowledge.
- Expert Python and backend engineering including APIs, microservices, event-driven architectures, and system design
- Strong AWS expertise across Lambda, ECS/EKS, S3, EventBridge, Step Functions, IAM, CloudWatch, and security
- Deep experience in observability, telemetry, logging, tracing, OpenTelemetry, monitoring, and Site Reliability Engineering
- Technical leadership, CI/CD, DevSecOps, architecture governance, performance optimisation, and mentoring
- Own the end-to-end platform architecture for telemetry, evaluations, observability, and Agentic AI Recommendations Platform.
- Lead engineering standards, technical direction, scalability, security, reliability, and platform evolution.
- Mentor engineers and drive adoption of modern cloud, AI, and observability engineering practices
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
- Advanced knowledge of software development methodologies, practices, concepts, and technologies
- Advanced knowledge of at least one programming language and at least general knowledge of one or more additional programming languages
- Knowledge of project management methodology and principles
- Ability to demonstrate strong analytical and problem-solving abilities with a proactive mindset to get ahead of issues
- Skilled in communication with ability to articulate a clear direction and priorities on ideas, approaches, concepts, options, risks, impacts, and recommendations to technical, non-technical, and Leadership audiences with ability to adapt the message accordingly
- Ability to articulate the technical implementation and how it provides business value
- Ability to lead ideation, presentation, and group-thinking sessions
- Ability to influence effectively without authority up through Senior Leadership levels to achieve desired business outcomes
- Ability to lead multiple efforts concurrently, whether administrative or project related, while maintaining a successful level of completion in their own work
- Ability to work in a fast-paced, Team-based, Customer service-oriented environment
- Architecture and development of large-scale cloud-native platforms and distributed systems (8+ years). AI/ML knowledge.
- Expert Python and backend engineering including APIs, microservices, event-driven architectures, and system design
- Strong AWS expertise across Lambda, ECS/EKS, S3, EventBridge, Step Functions, IAM, CloudWatch, and security
- Deep experience in observability, telemetry, logging, tracing, OpenTelemetry, monitoring, and Site Reliability Engineering
- Technical leadership, CI/CD, DevSecOps, architecture governance, performance optimisation, and mentoring
- Agentic AI and LLM application architectures
- LangGraph, LangChain, MCP Frameworks
- Kafka, Kinesis, Streaming architectures
- Grafana, Datadog, Prometheus, PagerDuty
Education
- Required: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems or related field and/or equivalent formal training
Experience
- Required: Expert level experience, expansive and far reaching knowledge in software engineering
- 8-10 years of relevant work-related experience
- Architecture and development of large-scale cloud-native platforms and distributed systems (8+ years). AI/ML knowledge.
- Expert Python and backend engineering including APIs, microservices, event-driven architectures, and system design
- Strong AWS expertise across Lambda, ECS/EKS, S3, EventBridge, Step Functions, IAM, CloudWatch, and security
- Deep experience in observability, telemetry, logging, tracing, OpenTelemetry, monitoring, and Site Reliability Engineering
- Technical leadership, CI/CD, DevSecOps, architecture governance, performance optimisation, and mentoring
- Agentic AI and LLM application architectures
- LangGraph, LangChain, MCP Frameworks
- Kafka, Kinesis, Streaming architectures
- Grafana, Datadog, Prometheus, PagerDuty
Other Qualifications
- Must meet confidentiality expectations as to confidential, proprietary and sensitive Company information
- Ability to work extended hours as needed
- Ability to work onsite approximately 3 days per week and as required by the business.
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
- 8-10 years of relevant work experience
- Expert-level experience and extensive knowledge in software engineering
- 8+ years architecting and developing large-scale cloud-native platforms and distributed systems
- Expert Python and backend engineering experience, including APIs, microservices, event-driven architectures, and system design
- Strong AWS expertise, including Lambda, ECS/EKS, S3, EventBridge, Step Functions, IAM, CloudWatch, and security
- Deep experience with observability, telemetry, logging, tracing, OpenTelemetry, monitoring, and Site Reliability Engineering
- Experience with technical leadership, CI/CD, DevSecOps, architecture governance, performance optimization, and mentoring
- Knowledge of AI and machine learning
- Agentic AI and LLM application architecture experience
- Experience with LangGraph, LangChain, and MCP Frameworks
- Experience with Kafka, Kinesis, and streaming architectures
- Experience with Grafana, Datadog, Prometheus, and PagerDuty
- Ability to work onsite approximately three days per week and as required by the business
- Ability to work extended hours as needed
- Ability to maintain confidentiality of company information
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.
