SpaceX has hired a 14-year-old software engineer, Kairan Quazi, who passed the company's "technically challenging" and "fun" interview process. Quazi is the youngest person to ever be hired by SpaceX.
According to LA Times, he started studying computer science and engineering at the age of 11 and will graduate from Santa Clara University this month with a degree in computer science and engineering.
Quazi is excited to start his new job at SpaceX, and he hopes to use his skills to help the company achieve its goal of sending humans to Mars.
"I will be joining the coolest company on the planet as a software engineer on the Starlink engineering team. One of the rare companies that did not use my age as an arbitrary and outdated proxy for maturity and ability," he wrote on LinkedIn.
According to reports, Quazi is planning to move from Pleasanton, California to Redmond, Washington with his mother to start work at SpaceX.
As per the LA Times, Quazi's early interest in news and current events was a sign of his intelligence and curiosity. His journey began when he was two years old and could speak in complete sentences. By kindergarten, he was telling his friends and teachers about news stories he had heard on the radio.
When Quazi was in the third grade, aged just nine, he found that his schoolwork was not challenging enough. His parents, recognizing his academic potential, enrolled him at a community college.
"I felt like I was learning at the level that I was meant to learn," Qazi was quoted as saying by LA Times.
In his free time, Quazi enjoys playing games that are set in historical periods, such as the Assassin's Creed series. He also enjoys reading science fiction stories by Philip K. Dick and the works of journalist Michael Lewis, who specialises in financial crises and behavioral finance.
Earlier this year, the 14-year-old shared on Instagram that he was preparing for a job interview. Weeks later, he shared a screenshot of his job acceptance letter from SpaceX.
