Associate Data Scientist - Direct College Hire

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:

Our Technology Direct College Hire Program is a pathway for recent college graduates and individuals who are early in their technology careers to begin their professional growth journey. Through this program, we aim to help you develop lasting relationships while creating a meaningful career through on-the-job mentorship, professional development, and networking opportunities. We welcome emerging Technology professionals to our upcoming January, June, or August 2026 cohorts.   

 

All of Southwest’s People come together to deliver on our Purpose; Connecting People to what’s important in their lives through friendly, reliable, and low-cost air travel. This Associate Data Scientist will support our Artificial Intelligence Team, where they'll fuel Southwest's future with AI and data-driven solutions, delivering scalable impact, eliminating friction, increasing efficiency, and enhancing experiences for Customers and Employees. This role serves as an entry-level internal Consultant, responsible for the application of statistics/math, business acumen, and computer science concepts to collect, organize, analyze, summarize, and interpret data; or participate in the development of data science, machine learning, or artificial intelligence products which generate competitive advantage for Southwest. This role will drive actionable insights and decisions in support of descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, or prescriptive business needs.

Additional details

• Please forward any questions regarding this role to TechnologyRecruitingInformation@wnco.com.

• This role allows for voluntary remote work for the majority of your working time within the Dallas-Fort Worth area, with occasional on-site presence at our Corporate Campus for training, meetings, and business needs. This role may also require limited travel for business purposes.

• U.S. citizenship or current authorization to work in the U.S. required and no current or future work authorization sponsorship available.

• Preferred experience, knowledge, and skills will vary per role and may include, but are not limited to:

• Preferred knowledge and/or experience with AWS Sagemaker and AWS Bedrock

• Preferred knowledge of Tableau and VS Code

We’re committed to fair hiring practices and to making employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, age, military or veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other legally protected characteristics.

Responsibilities

• Works on moderately complex data science, machine learning, traditional artificial intelligence, generative artificial intelligence or optimization projects, working with stakeholders to understand contextual problems quickly and define, analyze, and deliver solutions based on business objectives
• Applies math, statistics, and/or modeling methods to create solutions which can be utilized in descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analytics
• Supports the ongoing effectiveness of models in use by stakeholders
• Formulates solutions and communicates results from data analysis and models with some assistance from more experienced Data Scientists
• Supports the ongoing development of analytical IQ by collaborating with and contributing to the Southwest Airlines data science community
• Must be able to meet any physical ability requirements listed on this description
• May perform other job duties as directed by Employee's Leaders

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Knowledge of foundational statistics and math concepts
• Knowledge of descriptive, diagnostic, predicti