Kairan Quazi, a 16-year-old of Bangladeshi origin, is leaving Elon Musk's SpaceX after two years. The teen prodigy gained massive attention for being one of the youngest graduates of a university in the United States.
In 2023, when he was 14, he joined SpaceX as the company's youngest employee, working on the Starlink division. He contributed to the production of critical systems, ensuring satellite accuracy.
He will now join Citadel Securities in New York as a global trading infrastructure engineer. He said he chose the company because ot its intellectual complexity and rapid feedback, allowing him to see measurable impact within days.
"After two years at SpaceX, I felt ready to take on new challenges and expand my skill set into a different high-performance environment," Quazi told Business Insider in an interview.
"Citadel Securities offered a similarly ambitious culture, but also a completely new domain, which is very exciting for me."
Quazi became the youngest graduate of Santa Clara University at 14, earning a degree in computer science and engineering. He also completed an internship at Intel Labs when he was 10 years old. In 2022, he did an internship in machine learning at cyber-intelligence firm Blackbird.AI.
As per reports, his work involves engineering and quantitative problem-solving, with experience in low-latency, high-performance computing, and real-time programming.
"Quant finance offers a pretty rare combination: the complexity and intellectual challenge that AI research also provides, but with a much faster pace," Quazi said.
"At Citadel Securities, I'll be able to see measurable impact in days, not months or years like many research environments."
As per reports, the new workplace is just a 10-minute walk from his apartment in Manhattan.
