Manager Technology - Observability Accelerators & AI

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.

• 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

• 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 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

• Required: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems or related field and/or equivalent formal training

• 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

• Must meet confidentiality expectations as to confidential, proprietary and sensitive Company information
• Ability to work extended hours as needed