Teen prodigy leaves SpaceX for Wall Street

Bangladeshi-American takes his precocious talent to Citadel Securities

- BY JAY HILOTIN Senior Assistant Editor

t just 16 years old, Kairan Quazi — once a college-level wiz-kid — is trading Starlink satellites for Wall Street algorithms.

At the age of 14, the Bangladeshi-American prodigy turned heads in 2023, as the youngest-ever graduate of Santa Clara University, earning a degree in computer science and engineering.

Stint at SpaceX

Soon after, he joined Elon Musk’s SpaceX to help build production-critical software for Starlink, fine-tuning satellite beam targeting to bring fast, reliable internet to millions.

Now, Kairan is making headlines again — this time exchanging rockets for financial markets.

He’s joining Citadel Securities in New York as a quantitative developer, where he’ll be working on the firm’s global trading infrastructure, as per Business Insider.

Why did he make the leap?