Kairan Quazi, a 14-year-old graduate from Santa Clara University’s School of Engineering, is set to become the newest software engineer at SpaceX’s Starlink. In a post on LinkedIn, Quazi announced that he passed the most transparent, technically challenging, and fun interview process before being offered the job. The San Francisco-based Quazi has hands-on experience in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) after spending time on co-op at a Fortune 100 technology company and a summer internship at a VC-backed cyber intelligence start-up.
Quazi’s parents said that he was already speaking in full sentences at the age of two and it became apparent in third grade that mainstream education wasn’t the right path for his accelerated learning ability. At just nine years old, Quazi enrolled at Las Positas Community College and earned a degree in Associate of Science (Mathematics) with highest distinction. When I first started (at Santa Clara University), people were really intrigued, he said. But after a few days, I think the novelty wore off and I think a lot of them realised that I’m a pretty normal person.
Quazi’s desire to work on generative AI with Lama Nachman, Director of Intelligent Systems Research Lab at Intel Labs, changed his career trajectory. In a sea of so many no’s by Silicon Valley’s most vaunted companies, that one leader saying yes… one door opening… changed everything, he wrote in a post. The whiz kid is set to begin work at one of the coolest companies on the planet as a Software Engineer on the Starlink engineering team, a rare company that did not use his age as an arbitrary and outdated proxy for maturity and ability.
Despite the conventional mindset that Quazi’s accelerated learning ability would limit his childhood experiences, he believes otherwise. 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, he said. Quazi thanked his mentors, including those from SCU and Intel, for recognizing his value, trusting his abilities, and investing in his growth.
