- By Shreyansh Mangla
- Mon, 25 Aug 2025 04:21 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
Kairan Quazi: When was the last time you saw a child prodigy work his way through big space companies like SpaceX and become the youngest graduate at Santa Clara University? Meet Kairan Quazi, a child prodigy from Bangladesh and the United States, who has gained global fame for his unique academic and professional experience at a very young age. His is a story of someone who follows an unconventional path, marked by accelerated intellect and a series of high-profile roles in technology and finance. Here we will learn more about the child prodigy:
Who Is Kairan Quazi?
Kairan is a child prodigy, originally hailing from Bangladesh, who moved to the US with his immigrant parents. His mother works as a professional on Wall Street and his father Mustahid Quazi is a chemical engineer. Therefore, it is not difficult to figure why Kairan had a strong inclination towards science and engineering.
Quazi's genius was evident from a very young age. By the time he was two, his emotional and intellectual capabilities were far beyond his years, so much so that as a tiny toddler, he started discussing world politics and even led a protest in his preschool. His parents, Mustahid Quazi and Jullia Quazi, supported their son's unique path forward.
Due to his advanced capabilities, Kairan skipped the traditional route of education and at the age of nine, he began attending college courses. By age 11, he earned an Associate of Science in Mathematics from Las Positas College. This was followed by Kairan's time at Santa Clara University, where he became the youngest graduate in the university's 170-year history to earn a bachelor's degree in computer science at the age of 14.
Professional Journey
Kairan began his professional journey even before he could complete his formal education, starting with Intel Labs, where he worked as a co-op for four years developing a predictive speech generation model. He also interned at AI firm Blackbird.AI in 2022.
At SpaceX
Following this, Quazi was hired by Elon Musk's SpaceX at the age of 14. He was one of the youngest engineers ever at the company. For the first few years, he worked on the Starlink Project, where he helped develop systems that control satellite internet beams, contributing to the speed and reliability of the service.
Move to Wall Street
More recently, at the age of 16, Kairan made headlines again for becoming the youngest engineer ever to depart from SpaceX. The prodigy now wants to join Citadel Securities, which is a global trading firm.
Explaining his decision to Business Insider, Kairan stated in a report that he was drawn to the fast-paced world of finance, especially quantitative finance, which offered a much faster feedback loop where he could see the outcome of his work much faster, rather than waiting for months or years.
Kairan was also content with Citadel's meritocratic culture, which judged individuals not on the basis of their age but rather on the talent they possessed.
His emphasis on merit over age was expressed through an incident where Kairan's LinkedIn account was suspended because he was under the age of 16 at the time. He took to other social media platforms to point out this incident, and later, his post went viral across the internet, with people incessantly noting and pointing out Kairan's age.
Since his step into the professional world, Quazi has always been vocal about facing "cultural adultism" or age-based biases.
This move to Citadel marks the very first time that the teen would now be living independently, without his parents' assistance, in Manhattan, which is a very short walk from his new office.