Associate Data Engineer - Direct College Hire

Department:

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.   

At Southwest Airlines, our People come together to fulfill our Purpose: Connecting People to what’s important in their lives through friendly, reliable, and low-cost air travel. Associate Data Engineers support the design and deployment of data engineering solutions under guidance, contributing to the development of analytical tools and helping update systems to meet evolving business needs. We’re hiring for multiple Associate Data Engineer roles across multiple Teams, each supporting a unique area of our business:

• Artificial Intelligence: Our team combines advanced AI, automation, and real time data to transform complex information into simple, actionable insights for decision making that help operations run efficiently, safely, and ultimately enhance the overall customer experience.
   

• Data & Architecture: The focus of the Team is to create reliable, secure and performant data pipelines that ingest, store and provide data in a variety of ways to business and technology customers across the SWA enterprise.  We work on projects that help provide the best experience for our customers.  We work to personalize the information they get from SWA and to meet their travel wishes and 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 experience/knowledge in ETL including AbInitio and Glue  

• Preferred knowledge of Python, SQL, and Java   

• Preferred experience with Kafka 

• Preferred working knowledge and/or experience with Redshift, Aurora,S3, Dynamo DB, and Oracle 

• Preferred experience with AWS technology, including S3, Glue, Lambda, VPC, API Gateway, EC2, EMR, Cloudwatch, and AWS Q Developer

• Preferred expeirence with Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) tools, including GitLab and Terraform  

We’re committed to fair hiring practices and to making employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gen