Child prodigy accepts job offer from SpaceX after graduating at just 14
Kairan Quazi is only in his teens, but has already graduated with a computer science degree before accepting a job with SpaceX.
A child prodigy has accepted a job at SpaceX, after graduating at just 14 years old.
Kairan Quazi announced the news in an impressive LinkedIn post, during which he explained how he’d begun his software engineering career at an early age.
While he kept post pretty professional, Quazi couldn’t help but gush about working for the ‘coolest company on the planet’.
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It’s even more impressive considering that he skipped elementary school and enrolled in community college instead.
At the time, Quazi was just nine years old and studying for a maths degree at Las Positas College, with the prodigy admitting mainstream education wasn’t for him.
"During third grade, it became very obvious to my teachers, my parents, and my paediatrician that mainstream education wasn't the right path for my accelerated learning ability," he told ABC 7, as he spoke about his degree.
Just two years later, he transferred to Santa Clara University (SCU) at age 11 and interned for several years at Intel while researching artificial intelligence.
The now-14-year-old has gone on to receive his bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering, becoming SCU’s youngest-ever graduate.
While you might not want to go up against him in Trivial Pursuit, you may have a lot of reasons to be grateful to Quazi in the not-too-distant future.
Having just graduated, the 14-year-old will now be joining SpaceX’s engineering team and will soon be working on their Starlink broadband system.
It’s hoped that the cutting-edge tech can provide high-speed internet almost anywhere on Earth thanks to their system of low-orbit satellites.
Sharing the news on LinkedIn, Quazi thanked the technology firm and said that it had been ‘one of the rare companies that did not use my age as an arbitrary and outdated proxy for maturity and ability'.
Though he’ll still be the youngest software engineer at SpaceX, Quazi has insisted he isn’t missing out on the opportunity to be a kid.
"I think there is a conventional mindset that I'm missing out on childhood, but I don't think that's true,” he told ABC 7.
“I don't think it makes sense for someone that's able to take rigorous graduate electives work in a prestigious co-op - I am joining SpaceX as a software engineer.
"I don't think it makes sense I would be trapped or that anyone whose abilities are beyond that to be trapped."
UNILAD has reached out to SpaceX for comment.
Katherine Sidnell