Kairan Quazi, who became the youngest engineer at the world’s richest man’s SpaceX at 14, has departed the company to join quant trading firm Citadel Securities at 16.

“After two years at SpaceX, I felt ready to take on new challenges and expand my skill set into a different high-performance environment,” the Bangladeshi-origin prodigy told Business Insider. 

“Citadel Securities offered a similarly ambitious culture, but also a completely new domain, which is very exciting for me.”

At a time when quant trading firms are competing with AI labs such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Musk’s xAI for top talent, his move is seen as a major win for Citadel Securities.

The firm, linked to billionaire Ken Griffin’s hedge fund Citadel, is one of the largest players in high-speed trading, generating nearly $10 billion in revenue in 2024 and a record $3.4 billion in the first quarter of 2025.

A company spokesperson said Quazi will work on global trading infrastructure at the “intersection of engineering and quantitative problem-solving,” collaborating with both traders and engineers.

Kairan Quazi on his first day working at SpaceX. Photo courtesy of Quazi’s Instagram

Quazi’s career path has been unconventional from the beginning. At 9, he left third grade for community college, interned at Intel Labs at 10, and transferred to Santa Clara University at 11, becoming the youngest graduate in its 172-year history, according to Fortune.

In 2023, he made headlines when SpaceX hired him. At the time, he praised the company as “rare” for not using age as an “arbitrary and outdated proxy for maturity and ability.”

He said that he was not fetching coffee or working on minor projects, but instead had responsibilities in production-critical systems.

“I had a very broad scope and a lot of responsibility, especially for a junior engineer,” he said.

That same year, Quazi clashed with LinkedIn after it locked his account for being under 16, calling the decision “illogical, primitive nonsense.”

When reinstated, he criticized the education system, saying “tests are not used to measure mastery, but the ability to regurgitate” and that the modern “school factory” rewards fear and prestige-chasing over learning.

Two years on, he has chosen finance over offers from leading AI startups and tech firms.

“Quant finance offers a pretty rare combination: the complexity and intellectual challenge that AI research also provides, but with a much faster pace,” he said.

At Citadel Securities, he added, results can be seen “in days, not months or years.”

The choice also carries personal significance.

His mother previously worked in mergers and acquisitions, and he noted that many computer science and mathematics students he studied with were drawn to quant roles, according to First Post.

Now based in Manhattan, Quazi has moved into an apartment near Citadel Securities’ Park Avenue office.

“New York City has a very special place in my heart,” he said, adding that his mother grew up in Astoria, Queens.

Unlike at SpaceX, where his mother drove him to work, his new office is only a 10-minute walk away.