Tech Lead Software Engineer - AI & Analytics

Preferred Experience

Qualifications

• 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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Preferred Qualifications

• Preferred Experience

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
• 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