Associate Software Engineer - Direct College Hire

Southwest Airlines is an airline company with technology teams supporting critical business and operational functions. The Associate Software Engineer will design, develop, test, troubleshoot, and support scalable applications, APIs, cloud platforms, and digital experiences in a collaborative Agile environment. The role also involves partnering with technology and business teams, evaluating code, and contributing to technical decisions and continuous improvement.

Responsibilities:

• Apply knowledge and skills of software development and testing to solve a range of problems
• Leverage knowledge to inform technical and non-technical requirements to apply to Business domain fundamentals
• Maintain understanding of current technologies or programming practices through continuing education, reading, or participation in professional conferences, workshops, or groups
• Troubleshoot program and system malfunctions to restore normal functioning across environments, including production
• Evaluate code to ensure that it is valid, is properly structured, and meets industry standards
• Analyze user needs and software requirements to determine feasibility of design within time and cost constraints
• Contribute to Team-level technical discussion and decisions and identify opportunities for Team improvement
• Follow agile delivery processes to drive work and has a sense of urgency about getting work completed
• May perform other job duties as directed by Employee's Leaders

Requirements:

• Our Technology Direct College Hire Program is a pathway for early-career technology professionals with up to two years of professional experience, including recent college graduates ready to begin the next chapter of their careers
• • U.S. citizenship or current authorization to work in the U.S. required and no current or future work authorization sponsorship available
• • Proficient knowledge of software development methodologies, practices, concepts, and technologies
• • Ability to apply knowledge and skills of software development and testing to solve a range of problems
• • Proficient knowledge of at least one required programming language
• • Ability to communicate and negotiate with various Technology or partner Teams
• • Ability to analyze large, complex, and vague Business or technical problems, articulating the problem or root cause, and translating the analysis into viable solution recommendations
• • Ability to take on multiple assignments, whether administrative or project related, while maintaining a successful level of completion in all responsible work
• • Ability to develop, present and effectively communicate ideas and strategies to a variety of audiences
• • Required: High School Diploma or GED
• • Required: Bachelor's Degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Cybersecurity, or related field; or equivalent formal training
• • Required: Entry level experience, developing skills and knowledge in software engineering
• • Ability to perform work duties from [limited space work station/desk/office area] for extended periods of time
• • Ability to communicate and interact with others in the English language to meet the demands of the job
• • Ability to use a computer and other office productivity tools with sufficient speed and accuracy to meet the demands of the job
• • Must be a U.S. citizen or have authorization to work in the United States as defined by the Immigration Reform Act of 1986
• • Must be at least 18 years of age
• • Must be able to travel and / or attend Company and non-Company facilities and remote locations such as remote-based offices as necessary
• • Preferred: Intermediate level experience, fully functioning broad knowledge in:
  • Data structures, algorithms, debugging, testing, and object-oriented design principles
• • Programming languages such as Java, JavaScript, Python, C#, Node.js, or similar object-oriented programming languages
• • AWS cloud services and concepts, including Lambda, S3, Fargate, DynamoDB, EventBridge, ECS, Kinesis, and SQS
• • Generative AI concepts and foundational understanding
• • API development, integration, and service-oriented architectures (RESTful services and microservices)
• • Agile or Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) methodologies
• • Applying systems thinking to solve complex and ambiguous business or technical challenges
• • Building strong relationships and establishing trust across cross-functional teams and stakeholders