At just 16, Bangladeshi-American prodigy Kairan Quazi has joined US-based Citadel Securities, making waves as one of the world’s youngest quantitative developers.
After two years at SpaceX, where he contributed to Starlink software systems, Kairan chose Citadel for its fast-paced, high-impact work environment.
“Citadel offers a unique environment where I can see the measurable impact of my work within days or weeks,” Kairan told Business Insider. His mother added that the firm trusted his abilities, encouraging him to embrace challenges and grow.
A graduate of Santa Clara University at 14—the youngest in the university’s 170-year history—Kairan began college at nine and earned an Associate of Science in mathematics from Las Positas College at 11. His professional journey started even earlier, with an internship at Intel Labs at age 10, where he worked on predictive speech generation platforms.
Meet new SpaceX employee 14-year-old Bangladeshi-AmericanKairan’s Bangladeshi roots come through his mother, Julia Kazi, whose shopping centre in Moulvibazar, Bangladesh, includes a restaurant named after him. His grandmother, Syeda Hasna Begum, was the first elected female MP from Moulvibazar, while his late grandfather, Gajonfar Ali Chowdhury, was a prominent journalist and politician. Both were instrumental in publishing the American edition of Bangladesh’s Dainik Sangbad in the early 1990s.
