Kairan Quazi

Kairan was advised by his family doctor and school teachers to enroll in college while still in third grade.^[14] He had already developed an interest in calculus and organic chemistry, subjects not available in the school's curriculum.^[10] His psychologist assessed him as "an outlier among outliers," and recommended that Kairan was ready for college.^[3] Psychologist Dan Peters suggested that he join the Helios School, a private school for gifted children.^[15] At age nine, in 2018, he simultaneously entered the Helios School and the Las Positas Community College, where he studied mathematics and chemistry,^[10][16] and received his associate's degree in science.^[9][17] In 2018, he completed California's high school equivalency exam, a requisite for full college enrolment.^[3] At Las Positas, he became the youngest student and tutor.^[1][4] In 2019 he was accepted by Lama Nachman, director of the Intelligent Systems Research Lab at Intel for an internship.^[1] Kairan said his experience with Nachman "changed everything".^[4][18] In 2020, he obtained Associate of Science degree in mathematics from Las Positas Community College.^[19]

In 2020, at age 11, Quazi transferred to Santa Clara University (SCU) and studied computer science and engineering.^[9][20] In 2022, he completed an internship at a cyber intelligence firm, Blackbird.AI.^[20][5] Between 2021 and 2023, he was elected senator in the Associated Student Government of the university.^[21][22] With a thesis titled ACAT 2.0: An AI Transformer-Based Approach to Predictive Speech Generation,^[23] he graduated on 17 June 2023.^[24] With a degree in software engineering, Kairan became the youngest student to ever graduate from Santa Clara University.^[9]

By February 2023, Kairan had received three employment offers.^[21] In April 2023, Quazi announced on Instagram that he was ready for a major job interview.^[4] Several companies rejected his applications, but SpaceX offered him a position. His parents "prepared him for disappointment", as his mother took him to Seattle for the interview.^[3] The company announced his appointment on 13 June, posting on Twitter: "SpaceX hires the best, brightest and smartest engineers in the world, even a 14-year-old by the name of Kairan Quazi, who will start his new job on SpaceX's Starlink team on July 31."^[25] He moved to Redmond with his mother in July 2023.^[4][18]

When Kairan announced his new appointment on LinkedIn, saying, "Next stop: Space X!", the professional online platform soon deleted his account.^[26] LinkedIn requires users to be 16 years of age. It informed Kairan that he would be welcome to join when he turned 16.^[6][27] Kairan responded by remarking the situation "illogical, primitive nonsense" as he was already employed in a profession.^[28] LinkedIn restored his account in March 2025.^[19][29]

In August 2025, at age 16, Quazi was hired by Citadel Securities as a quant developer in New York City.^[30]