Senior Product Owner

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:

As a Senior Product Owner, you'll define the vision, strategy, and roadmap for digital capabilities supporting Material Stores, Supply Chain, Parts Planning, and Reliability. You'll partner with Business and Technology Leaders to deliver AI-enabled, data-driven solutions that improve operational efficiency, inventory visibility, maintenance planning, and decision-making. Leveraging a strong technical background, you'll work directly with Engineering and Data Teams to shape scalable products, advance digital transformation initiatives, and ensure solutions align with business priorities, data strategy, and long-term operational goals.

This addition positions the Product Owner as someone who not only understands the business and product strategy but also drives the evolution of engineering practices and AI adoption across the software development lifecycle, which aligns well with your Engineering Excellence framework.

Additional Details

• 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.

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

• Provide innovation and the end-to-end launch of integrated solutions/products across multiple Agile Teams

• Collaborate with Business Partners and Product Managers to co-develop a roadmap and drive products and features from concept to launch in a fast-paced environment across multiple Agile Teams

• Work with senior stakeholders and customers across the organization to inform the product vision, strategy, features, and prioritization

• Translate product roadmap features into well-defined product requirements including features, user stories, and acceptance test criteria across multiple products or complex solutions

• Turn data insights into products with actionable outcomes to the ultimate customer

• Oversee the design, construction, and implementation of integrated solutions ensuring functionality meets business requirements

• Coach and mentor other Product Owners across multiple Agile Teams to build, refine, prioritize and maintain their Team backlogs

• Review, approve, and drive iteration content by prioritizing user stories and accept user stories as complete

• Define and prioritize solutions to complex issues and effectively communicate dependencies, risks, issues and cope for complex solutions

• Coach and mentor Product Owners and Scrum Masters in the successful delivery of Scrum ceremonies such as iteration planning, iteration reviews, and demos

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

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Ability to make decisions independently and demonstrate skills to support, guide, and mentor other Product Owners in the same business domain

• Ability to understand technical issues across multiple business systems and how business areas interact in order to drive toward the best solutions

• Ability to be analytical and problem solve with a high attention to detail

• Ability to show initiative by anticipating risks, issues and opportunities, and escalating them accordingly, while mentoring and coaching

• Skilled in presentation, facilitation, communication, and negotiation across multiple stakeholders and levels in the organization

• Ability to search for opportunities, focus on business value and the Return On Investment and act proactively on possible risks and threats

• Ability to effectively manage complex tasks that are not well defined

• Ability to balance priority, risk, value, learning opportunities and dependencies and effectively uses product / Team backlog to manage them

• Ability to effectively communicate complex problems, risks, progress, or new ideas to diverse Stakeholders and influence direction

• Knowledge of industry trends and new technologies in order to provide innovative product guidance to the Business or Product Manager

• Expertise in Agile including the value and principles, and how they are applied in enterprise environments

Education

• Required: High School Diploma or GED

• Required: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information systems or similar fields of study or equivalent advanced level experience

Experience

• Required: Advanced-level experience, seasoned and specialized knowledge in:

  • Agile and Scrum software development methodologies

  • Business analysis, project management or software development delivering enterprise products and solutions

• Preferred: Experience in the following

  • Product Management or Product Ownership experience delivering enterprise technology solutions.

  • Technical Product Owner background with full-stack development experience, able to read SQL, understand API contracts, data pipeline logic, and engage directly with system architecture rather than relying solely on engineers to translate technical constraints.

  • Define and execute the product vision, strategy, and multi-year roadmap aligned with business priorities.

  • Partner with Supply Chain, Material Stores, Reliability, Engineering, and Operations to identify opportunities and prioritize product investments.

  • Lead business process discovery and transformation workshops to translate operational needs into scalable digital solutions.

  • Drive data strategy by partnering with Enterprise Data teams to improve data quality, governance, analytics, and AI readiness – with the technical fluency to personally validate data pipeline outputs and diagnose data quality or model reliability issues.

  • Own and prioritize the product backlog, define product requirements, and collaborate with engineering teams to deliver high-value capabilities using Agile methodologies.

  • Measure product success through business outcomes, user adoption, operational efficiency, and continuous improvement.

  • Experience leading digital products supporting Supply Chain, Material Stores, Inventory Management, Reliability, or Maintenance Operations.

  • Proven ability to define product vision, roadmaps, and prioritize backlogs using Agile methodologies.

  • Manage and prioritize the product backlog, ensuring epics, features, user stories, and acceptance criteria are clearly defined and development ready.

  • Experience facilitating business process discovery workshops and translating business capabilities into product requirements.

  • Experience partnering with Enterprise Data teams to define data strategy, governance, analytics, and AI-ready data products.

  • Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and strategic leadership skills, with the ability to translate fluently in both directions between business stakeholders and engineering teams.

  • Champion the use of AI assistants and emerging AI capabilities to enhance productivity, decision-making, and user experience.
  • Experience driving Engineering Excellence initiatives, including DevEx, AI-assisted engineering, built-in quality, application observability, and engineering self-service capabilities.
  • Strong understanding of AI-native software engineering practices, including AI assistants, MCP servers, prompt engineering, AI-driven development workflows, and modern software delivery automation.
  • Direct experience validating pipeline outputs and supporting UAT, hypercare, and go-live cutover for AI/data driven products, including technical troubleshooting alongside engineering during production issues.
  • Experience shaping API strategy, system integration points, and 3 rd -party/vendor technology decisions in partnership with engineering and architecture teams.
  • Hands-on familiarity with modern AI-assisted development tools and workflows (e.g. Claude Code, Kiro, Github Copilot) from a builders perspective.

Licensing/Certification

• N/A

Physical Abilities

• 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

Other Qualifications

• Must maintain a well-groomed appearance per Company appearance standards as described in established guidelines

• 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 comply with Company attendance standards as described in established guidelines

• Must be able to travel and /or attend Company and non-Company facilities and remote locations such as remote-based offices as necessary

Pay & Benefits

Competitive market salary from $119,900 per year to $133,200 per year* depending on qualifications and experience. For eligible Leadership and individual contributor roles, additional bonus opportunities are available and awarded at the discretion of the company.

Benefits you’ll love:

• Fly for free, as a privilege, on any open seat on all Southwest flights (your eligible dependents too)
• Southwest will help fund your 401(k) retirement savings with Company contributions up to 9.3% of your eligible earnings**
• Potential for annual ProfitSharing contribution in the Southwest Retirement Savings Plan- when Southwest profits, you profit***
• Competitive health insurance for you and your eligible dependents (including pets)
• Southwest offers health plan coverage options that start from the very first day of employment. You will have 30 days to select and enroll in your health plan with coverage retroactively available to your first day of employment.
• Explore more Benefits you’ll love:

*Pay amount does not guarantee employment for any particular period of time.

**401(k) match contributions are subject to Retirement Savings Plan vesting schedule and applicable IRS limits ***ProfitSharing contributions are subject to Retirement Savings Plan vesting schedule and are made at the discretion of the Company.

Southwest Airlines is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
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