“Next stop… SpaceX!!! I accepted a position as Software Engineer at one of the coolest companies on the planet!”
That social media post did not come from someone over the age of 22. It came from someone who is still in the midst of puberty.
Kairan Quazi, 14, is graduating from Santa Clara University this week and has already secured a job at the prestigious spaceship manufacturer headed by Elon Musk (though apparently he still cannot use Linkedin). Kairan said he’s excited to join SpaceX because it was “one of the rare companies that did not use my age as an arbitrary and outdated proxy for maturity and ability.” He will be moving to Redmond, Washington for the job along with his mother.
Quazi, who skipped elementary school, has been described as a child prodigy by his mother when she noticed he had remarkable speaking ability at just age two.
Kairan was born in Pleasanton, California, to Bangladeshi-American parents, he enrolled in community college at age nine, then transferred to Santa Clara University at age 11. In college, he had an internship at Intel as an artificial intelligence research fellow. He became the youngest graduate in the school’s history with a degree in computer science and engineering.
At SpaceX, Kairan said he will be assigned to the engineering team at Starlink, the company’s satellite broadband internet service. The Starlink system is designed to deliver high-speed internet using thousands of broadband relay stations in multiple low-altitude orbits.
Quazi can’t drive, vote, serve in the military, or even go see an R-rated film, but he has gotten a job no one else at his age can boast.
