Tech Lead Cloud DevOps Engineer

About Us

Job Summary

• The Platform AI & Integration Pod builds the foundational AI capabilities that integrate directly into developer workflows across Southwest — including GitLab Duo Agent Platform, enterprise Knowledge Graph, and platform accelerators. The team enables intelligent automation, faster developer productivity, and consistent AI adoption across the enterprise, connecting data, systems, and context so engineering teams can move faster with greater confidence.

• The Platform & AI Accelerators Pod drives Southwest's next-generation cloud platform transformation — migrating from CloudFormation-based CCP to Terraform-based CCPNext, scaling Backstage Golden Paths, and delivering AI-driven platform accelerators. The team enables faster developer onboarding, consistent enterprise standards, and higher engineering productivity through reusable modules, automation, and AI-enabled tooling adopted across the organization.

• As Tech Lead Cloud DevOps Engineer, you'll own technical direction across two high-impact platform pods. In Platform AI & Integration you'll set enterprise DevOps standards, GitLab platform depth, and AI-enabled developer capabilities; in Platform & AI Accelerators you'll drive the CloudFormation-to-Terraform (CCPNext) transformation and Backstage Golden Paths. You'll define reusable patterns other engineering teams build on, mentor engineers in our Hyderabad office, and shape how Southwest scales AI into the developer experience across both pods. This role covers 2 positions spanning both pods. The preferences below are organized by pod so candidates can see the distinct focus of each. ​

Responsibilities

• Work with other leaders to shape, improve and evolve the cloud platform vision and strategy for the future of cloud infrastructure and help manage the adoption process

• Operate in a DevOps culture and team, responsible for architecture, design, development, implementation, and ongoing operations of new and emerging technology platforms

• Evaluate cloud services and architecture to identify strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems

• Implement automation tools and frameworks for automatic code deployment (CI/CD)

• Work with the development team to deploy and manage tools that support SDLC automation, configuration management, and release management

• Create state-of-the-art technical architectures with automation to support complex delivery across a wide range of digital and enterprise applications

• Consult with stakeholders to specify requirements and solutions which address business challenges and opportunities

• Serve as a subject matter expert in cloud infrastructure, performing design reviews and consulting with internal teams to ensure design best practices

• Participate in system and acceptance testing to ensure that systems are functionally appropriate, technically sound, and well-integrated

• Lead, define and clearly communicate technical standards, governance, and compliance for cloud ecosystem

• May perform other job duties as directed by Employee's Leaders

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Knowledge of AWS Infrastructure as a Service Automation tools like Cloud Formation

• Knowledge of AWS compute, data sources, security technologies

• Knowledge of infrastructure-as-code (IAC)

• Skilled in deployment strategies using Docker for containerization

• Knowledge of the monitoring and management of the build and deployment processes and infrastructure

• Ability to analyze services to ensure security best practices are followed

• Ability to mentor and guide team members' learning, including introducing new ideas and technologies

• Skilled in evaluating, onboarding, and managing new technologies/services/features

• Ability to anticipate business needs and lead a team towards identifying and solving cross-domain problems

• Preferred:

  • Hands-on Tech Lead — sets direction and builds alongside the team

  • Advanced AWS platform engineering with multi-account, IAM, and security governance

  • GitLab platform depth — pipelines, runners, templates, governance, scaling

  • Enterprise developer platform mindset — reusable patterns and standards used by many teams

  • Terraform module design with multi-environment patterns and drift management

  • Observability and SRE practices — SLOs, error budgets, incident improvement

  • AI-enabled developer platforms (Duo Agent Platform, agent workflows)

  • Artifact management, code scanning, and secure software delivery (Nexus, SBOM)

  • Cross-functional partnership with peer Tech Leads across Technology

Education

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

Experience

• Required: Expert-level experience, expansive and far-reaching knowledge in Cloud software or DevOps

  • 8-10 years of relevant work-related experience

• Preferred:

  • Building enterprise developer platforms used across many engineering teams

  • GitLab Duo Agent Platform, Knowledge Graph, or comparable AI-enabled developer tooling

  • Container orchestration at scale (Kubernetes, EKS, ECS) with production support experience

  • Service mesh (Istio/App Mesh), API Gateway, and WAF for platform integrations

  • FinOps for developer platforms and AI-adjacent workloads

  • Mentoring engineers across a globally distributed team

  • Technical leadership within a large enterprise environment

Other Qualifications

• Must meet confidentiality expectations as to confidential, proprietary and sensitive Company information

• Ability to work extended hours as needed