14-Year-Old Software Engineer Hired by SpaceX Is Still Too Young to Be on LinkedIn: 'This Is the Illogical, Primitive Nonsense That I Face Constantly' Kairan Quazi entered college at the age of 9. Now he is set to graduate from Santa Clara University's School of Engineering.
By Sam Silverman Edited by Jessica Thomas
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Kairan Quazi is about to graduate college with a job waiting for him at SpaceX, but he won't be able to share the news on LinkedIn.
That's because the professional social networking platform has a minimum age requirement of 16, and Quazi is only 14.
But Quazi is no average teenager. He received his high school diploma from the state of California at age 10, after he had already started college coursework at age 9. He is set to graduate from Santa Clara University this week — as the youngest grad in the university's history — and after graduation he'll begin working at SpaceX's Starlink as a software engineer. But despite his academic accomplishments, LinkedIn has deemed him too young to network.
Quazi first garnered attention for revealing the news of his SpaceX job offer on social media, but shortly thereafter, the "profoundly gifted" student shared a notice from LinkedIn informing him that the platform will be deleting his profile on account of his age.
"This is the illogical, primitive nonsense that I face constantly," he wrote on his post with a screenshot of the memo. "I can be qualified enough to land one of the most coveted engineering jobs in the world but not qualified enough to have access to a professional social media platform?"
But this isn't the first time Quazi has run into roadblocks because of his age.
He was rejected from 95 jobs after the hiring managers saw how young he was over Zoom, he told USA Today. But he did receive three job offers from companies where "nobody winced at my age," including one from SpaceX.
Quazi was hired after going through 10 rounds of interviews with SpaceX and will be relocating with his mother to Redmond, Washington for the job.
"They (SpaceX) have been really accommodating of my schedule," Quazi told USA Today. "I was elated and surprised by how quickly they made the decision. The SpaceX opportunity resonates with my deep desire to be part of something bigger."
