New York: At just 16 years old, Kairan Quazi, celebrated as one of the youngest engineering prodigies in recent memory, has decided to leave SpaceX and step into the fast-paced world of quantitative finance by joining Citadel Securities.
Kairan Quazi’s meteoric rise began with him graduating from Santa Clara University at the unprecedented age of 14, making him the youngest graduate in the university’s 170-year history.
Shortly afterwards, he was recruited by SpaceX to work in the Starlink division, where he made significant contributions toward satellite beam targeting software — critical for ensuring global internet coverage.
After two productive years at SpaceX, Quazi felt ready to explore broader horizons. I
n an interview with Business Insider, he reflected:
“After two years at SpaceX, I felt ready to take on new challenges and expand my skill set into a different high-performance environment.”
He has now accepted a role as a quantitative developer at Citadel Securities in New York City, where he’ll work on global trading infrastructure blending engineering with quantitative problem-solving in one of Wall Street’s most competitive environments.
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Quazi emphasized the appeal of the finance sector’s fast-feedback culture, contrasting it to the longer timelines typical in aerospace or AI research.
“Quant finance offers the same intellectual challenge as AI research but with much faster results,” he said. “At Citadel Securities, I’ll be able to see measurable impact in days, not months or years.”