Kairan Quazi, the Bangladeshi-American prodigy who joined SpaceX at 14 as its youngest employee, is leaving the company at 16 to join Citadel Securities in New York as a developer. Quazi, who began university at 11 and previously interned at Intel Labs and Blackbird.AI, said he was drawn to quant finance for its fast pace and intellectual challenge. His journey highlights his extraordinary talent and ambition to make an impact across cutting-edge fields.
Kairan Quazi, the Bangladeshi-American prodigy who made headlines as SpaceX’s youngest employee at just 14, is now leaving the rocket company to join New York-based hedge fund Citadel Securities. At 16, Quazi will take on a role as a developer, signaling a shift from aerospace to high-speed quantitative finance.
In an interview with Business Insider, Quazi explained his decision, saying he was eager “to take on new challenges and expand my skill set into a different high-performance environment.” He described quant finance as offering “the complexity and intellectual challenge that AI research also provides, but with a much faster pace,” adding that at Citadel Securities, he can see measurable results “in days, not months or years.”
Quazi’s remarkable journey first went viral in 2023 when he joined SpaceX, having just graduated from Santa Clara University’s School of Engineering as its youngest-ever graduate. He praised SpaceX at the time for hiring him “without regard to my age” and called it the “coolest company on the planet” in a LinkedIn post.
Born in California to Bangladeshi parents, Quazi showed extraordinary abilities from a young age, speaking in full sentences by age two. By nine, he found traditional schooling unchallenging and began internships in artificial intelligence research, including positions at Intel Labs. By 11, he had formally begun university studies in computer science and engineering and later contributed to projects at the cyber intelligence firm Blackbird.AI.
Quazi’s move from SpaceX to Citadel Securities highlights his ambition to apply his prodigious talents across different cutting-edge fields, blending advanced technology with finance at a record-breaking pace.
