14-year-old boy who joined Elon Musk’s SpaceX is now leaving the company at 16: Here’s why

While most 16-year-olds are in school, Kairan Quazi is already starting his second big job. The young prodigy, who once worked at Elon Musk’s SpaceX, has now joined Citadel Securities, a big trading company on Wall Street. His new role is as a quant developer, which means he will use math and computer skills to work on financial systems.

Kairan’s journey has been unusual right from the start. At just nine years old, he left elementary school to study at a community college. A year later, he was interning at Intel Labs. By the age of 11, he had transferred to Santa Clara University. Soon after, he made history as the youngest graduate in the university’s long history.

In 2023, when he was only 14, SpaceX hired him to help design software for its Starlink satellites. At the time, Kairan said SpaceX stood out because it gave him a chance based on his skills and not his age. He has always been outspoken about how age should not stop talented people from getting opportunities.

Now, instead of sticking with tech companies in Silicon Valley, he is moving into finance. It is a completely new field for him, but one that shows he is not afraid to take risks and learn something different.