Summer 2027 Data Engineer Internship

Southwest Airlines • Dallas, TX

7d • Remote

About The Position

Southwest Airlines is committed to providing Employees with equal opportunities for learning and personal growth. As a Technology Intern, you’ll contribute to real-time projects, collaborate with fellow interns and cross-functional teams, help advance Company initiatives, and support Southwest’s Purpose of connecting People to what’s important in their lives through friendly, reliable, and low-cost air travel. Throughout the internship, you’ll have the opportunity to learn, grow, and develop as a future professional while making a meaningful impact. The Data Engineering Intern should be a strong communicator and collaborator, capable of presenting ideas in both technical and user-friendly terms while helping shape the future of Southwest’s Technology Team. If hired, Intern may be selected to support projects on the following Team: Enterprise Data Enablement. The Enterprise Data Enablement team builds and maintains the real-time data platforms that power critical Southwest Airlines operational systems. This team integrates flight operations data, including schedule updates, gate and baggage information, aircraft fuel data, and other operational events, into a unified, reliable data ecosystem. Their work supports the flight status experience on Southwest.com as well as data-driven decision making across more than 15 enterprise applications. The team develops solutions that provide visibility into airport ground equipment, helping improve operational efficiency, accelerate aircraft turnaround times, and enhance on-time performance. The team partners across Air Operations, Ground Operations, and other cross-functional business domains to deliver scalable data products and enable real-time insights throughout the organization.

Requirements

• Coursework or hands-on experience with programming and scripting languages such as Python, SQL, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.
• Coursework or experience with AWS cloud services and infrastructure, including S3, Lambda, Fargate, Aurora, Athena, and Redshift.
• Coursework or experience with data visualization, reporting, and business intelligence tools such as Power BI, Tableau, or similar platforms.
• Coursework or experience with SQL development, query optimization, and relational database management systems.
• Coursework or experience with data warehousing and data lake architectures.
• Coursework or experience with data integration, ETL/ELT processes, and data pipeline development.
• Coursework or experience with structured and semi-structured data formats, including XML, XSLT, XPath, JSON, and data transformation principles.
• Coursework or experience with Agile or Scaled Agile (SAFe) methodologies
• Must be at least 18 years of age.
• Must have authorization to work in the United States as defined by the Immigration Reform Act of 1986.
• You must have a valid U.S. Social Security Number to complete the full hiring process.

Nice To Haves

• Ability to stay organized and manage multiple and concurrent assignments under tight deadlines preferred
• Previous internship or work experience as a Data Engineer Intern within the past 12 months preferred
• Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced, team-based, Customer service-oriented environment with a high regard for hospitality
• Demonstrate programming aptitude and ability for logical and abstract thinking
• Problem solving ability and strong written/verbal communications skills preferred
• Works well in a culture that is open, direct, respectful, courteous, and compassionate preferred.
• High School Diploma, GED or equivalent education required.
• Progress towards degree, major, or minor in MIS, Business, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Systems or Information Technology, Data Analytics, Statistics, Economics, Finance, Business Administration or similar degree.
• Progress towards a 4-year undergraduate degree or graduate degree is required.
• To be eligible, you must be currently enrolled as a full-time student (as defined by your university) at the time of application and during the internship.
• 1-2 semesters remaining at the time the internship ends is preferred.
• Minimum 2.5 cumulative GPA at the time of application is required.

Responsibilities

• Support testing of data pipelines and integrations (e.g., between People and Training applications, such as Workday and Cornerstone).
• Assist to isolate errors in data flow or transformation logic and document findings.
• Contribute to automating manual processes such as training assignment tracking, report generation, or data syncing between systems.
• Build or update dashboards and reports using tools like Tableau or Alteryx to reflect data from both LMS (eLearning Platform) systems.
• Document technical processes, data definitions, and system behaviors during the transition of Learning Management systems (LMS).
• Assist in monitoring data quality, flag duplicates or inconsistencies, and support cleanup efforts.
• Participate in user acceptance testing (UAT) for LMS features and reporting tools.
• Conduct and participate in quality control activities and provide meaningful feedback.

Benefits

• free, unlimited space available travel privileges for yourself (taxes and fees may apply on international travel).
• Stipends may be offered based on eligibility and program criteria.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Intern
• Education Level: High school or GED