Kairan Quazi, a recent Santa Clara University (SCU) graduate, will move to Redmond, Washington, with his mother to take on a new job at SpaceX. He told CBS News that he was excited to join SpaceX, because it was "one of the few companies that doesn't make assumptions about my ability and maturity based on my age." SpaceX said that it won't need a special permit to hire the prodigy, as Kairan is of legal age under Washington state law.

California Governor Gavin Newsom meets Kairan Quazi during the 2021 inauguration of Santa Clara University's STEM Research Center. Photo: CBS News

Kairan was born in Pleasanton, California, to Bangladeshi-American parents. Jullia Quazi first noticed that her son had exceptional intelligence when he was just 2 years old. With extraordinary intelligence, Kairan passed many advanced tests after finishing third grade and was eligible to enroll in a community college at age 9. Just two years later, he was specially admitted to SCU, where he spent a long time interning at Intel Corporation as an artificial intelligence researcher. Receiving a bachelor's degree in computer science and engineering from SCU, Kairan became the youngest graduate in the school's 172-year history.

At SpaceX, Kairan was assigned to the engineering team for Starlink, the company's satellite broadband internet service. The Starlink system is designed to deliver high-speed internet to customers anywhere on Earth using thousands of broadband relay stations in multiple low-Earth orbits.

HIEN MINH