Sr Software Engineer - Cloud

Department Technology 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 Sr Software Engineer Global supporting the AI Platforms Pod with a Cloud focus, youll help design, build, and evolve the core cloudbased services that power Southwests AI and machine learning capabilities. This role blends handson software engineering with technical leadership, focusing on developing secure, reliable, and scalable cloud services that Teams across the Company rely on to build, deploy, and operate AI solutions. Youll drive system design and feature delivery for largescale cloud platforms, using AWS services, Infrastructure as Code, and CI/CD practices to reduce deployment risk and improve developer velocity. With a strong focus on observability, performance, and cost optimization, youll help ensure AI platforms deliver predictable unit economics and productionready reliability. Youll also mentor Software Engineers, promote shiftleft quality through better testing and automation, and collaborate closely with Product, Security, and Architecture Partners to continuously improve the cloud foundation that enables innovation across Southwests AI ecosystem. Responsibilities Drive the technical direction and feature roadmap of large-scale cloud systemsServe as a technical lead contributing to and directing the efforts of development teams, including internal and external team membersDetermines operational feasibility by evaluating analysis, problem definition, requirements, solution development, and proposed solutionsDrives detailed definition of feature requirements through discussions with product managers and customersSupports continuous improvement by investigating alternatives and new technologiesPrepares and installs solutions by determining and designing system specifications, standards, and programmingEvaluates code to ensure that it is valid, is properly structured, meets industry standards, and is compatible with browsers, devices, or operating systemsMentor Software Engineers to allow for skill/knowledge development through advice, coaching, and training opportunitiesUpdate 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 organizationsMay perform other job duties as directed by Employee's Leaders Knowledge, Skills And Abilities Advanced knowledge of software development methodologies, practices, concepts, and technologies obtained through formal training and / or work experienceProactively shares knowledge and skills of software development and testing to solve a range of problemsAdvanced knowledge of at least one required programming languageExcellent partnering, communication, negotiation skills, and execution in working with various Technology or partner TeamsAbility to articulate (verbally / visually) ideas, approach, concepts, options, risk, impact, and provides guidance to technical, non-technical, and Leadership audiencesAbility to lead multiple assignments, whether administrative or project related, while maintaining a successful level of completion in all responsible workAbility to mentor othersAbility to lead ideating, presentations, mentoring and group-thinking sessionsAbility to influence without authority Education Required: Required: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems or related field and/or equivalent formal training Experience Required: Advanced-level experience, seasoned and specialized knowledge in: Software development and methodologies5-7 years of relevant work-related experienceBackend/service development (Java/Python/Go) and distributed systemsAWS cloud development (IAM, VPC, S3, compute, managed services)IaC (CDK/Terraform/CloudFormation) + CI/CD pipelinesObservability (CloudWatch, logging, tracing) and operational excellenceEvent-driven integrations (Kafka/Kinesis) and data storage patternsSecure coding + threat modeling basics Preferred: Experience in:SageMaker/Bedrock integration experienceEKS/Kubernetes/ECSPerformance engineering (load testing, profiling)FinOps awareness (tagging, budgets, cost attribution)API gateway/auth patterns (OAuth/JWT) Other Qualifications Must meet confidentiality expectations as to confidential, proprietary and sensitive Company informationAbility to work extended hours as needed Southwest Airlines is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Please print/save this job description because it won't be available after you Depart