(USNewsMag.com) – Elon Musk is making history with his latest move to hire a 14-year-old software engineer at SpaceX.
The youngest-ever space software engineer, Kairan Quazi, will be working with Starlink, Musk’s satellite internet network. He is set to begin work in July. His working at 14 is not a violation of either Washington state law or federal law.
Before being offered the position with SpaceX, 95 companies rejected Quazi, despite his background. He was ultimately offered three jobs and had two job offers put on hold before being offered the position working at Starlink.
Known for a rigorous interview process, Quazi said his experience with the 10-round interview process at SpaceX was “a lot of fun.”
Quazi posted news of his new position in an Instagram post showing his LinkedIn profile. When he added SpaceX to a LinkedIn account, his account was blocked due to an age restriction of 16 at LinkedIn.
Quazi, the son of Bangladeshi immigrants, was born in Pleasanton, California. He will move with his family to Redmond, Washington, where he will work for the next year for SpaceX before he moves back to Starlink’s Mountain View, California, office. He said the job is exciting because he is “really excited to be having an impact,” referring to Starlink’s ability to provide people around the world with the internet.
A child prodigy, IQ tests suggest Quazi is in the 99.9th percentile. Quazi began programming at the age of 7, saying he wanted a “pre-calc book” at age 6 or 7. He began taking courses at Las Positas College, a Livermore, California, community college, when he was 9 years old. At 11, he transferred to Santa Clara University. He went on to study computer science as well as engineering, graduating as the youngest graduate of the school.
During his time in college, he had a multiyear internship as an artificial intelligence research fellow at Intel.
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