Abutalib (Barish) Namazov

Abutalib 'Barish' Namazov is an Azerbaijani computer scientist and IOI 2020 bronze medalist. He earned a B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from MIT in 2024 (GPA 5.0/5.0) and is now a PhD student in MIT CSAIL's Software Design Group. He worked as a research engineer at Citadel's Global Quantitative Strategies (GQS) from July 2024 to August 2025, after a 2023 Citadel software-engineering internship and a 2022 Microsoft internship. His research centers on software design - natural-language/LLM-driven app generation (Kodless), concept design, and agent-compatible systems - and he co-founded Fuiz, a live-quiz platform. He is a prolific teacher and community builder in Azerbaijan, running the National Olympiad in Informatics, a competitive-programming winter camp, and the kodlar.az wiki.

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• Research Engineer at Citadel / GQS from July 2024 to August 2025, having also interned at Citadel as a software engineer in summer 2023 - a two-year relationship (internship to full-time) with the same quant firm, the strongest employment signal in the profile.Aug 2025
• QUANT EMPLOYMENT VERIFICATION: CONFIRMED. Abutalib Namazov held a real, self-documented past role in quantitative finance: 'Research Engineer' at Citadel / GQS (Global Quantitative Strategies) from July 2024 to August 2025, preceded by a summer 2023 software-engineering internship at Citadel. Evidence: his own personal site (barish.me/about) states the Jul 2024-Aug 2025 Citadel/GQS role and the 2023 internship, and his 2024 resume lists 'Citadel LLC - Quantitative Research Engineer' with the same dates; identity is corroborated by the matching LinkedIn (Software Research @ MIT), GitHub (BarishNamazov, MIT), and MIT CSAIL SDG pages. Employer classification: Citadel's GQS is a systematic/quantitative hedge-fund trading unit (Citadel describes it as building and executing algorithmic strategies), so the employer genuinely operates in quantitative finance - not a name-only match. Note: this is a PAST role (ended Aug 2025); he is now a PhD student at MIT, and the caller's 'current employment' framing is stale. No other quant employers found (Microsoft was a general SWE internship).Aug 2025
• Career read across the timeline: IOI bronze (2020) -> MIT CS (2020-24) -> Microsoft SWE intern (2022) -> Citadel SWE intern (2023) -> Citadel/GQS research engineer (2024-25) -> MIT PhD (2026-). The Citadel internship preceded and led to the full-time offer, and he left full-time quant research after ~13 months to return to academia - the quant detour was deliberate and time-boxed.Aug 2025
• Citadel's GQS (Global Quantitative Strategies) is a quantitative hedge-fund unit; Citadel's own page describes it as 'one of the most significant quantitative trading teams in the industry,' building and executing algorithmic strategies - so the Citadel role sits squarely in quantitative/systematic trading, not general software.2024
• Admitted to MIT in 2020 with a full (100% financial aid) place in Computer Science; graduated May 2024 with a B.S. in CS&E and a 5.0/5.0 GPA, then stayed at MIT for a PhD in CSAIL's Software Design Group - an unusually direct undergrad-to-PhD retention that signals the lab wanted him to keep building Kodless.May 2024
• Abutalib 'Barish' Namazov is the IOI 2020 bronze medalist for Azerbaijan (272.62/600, rank 139), and also competed at IOI 2019 (232.24/600, rank 179) - the competitive-programming origin that runs through his whole later career.Sep 2020
• His research blog 'atelier' (atelier.barish.me) is organised around agent-compatible systems, concept design, local-first, malleable software and personal computing - his current intellectual focus is making software whose surfaces work for both humans and AI agents.2026
• Organizes and hosts the National Olympiad in Informatics in Azerbaijan, i.e. he now runs the national competition he once won three golds in (2017-2019) - the competitive-programming loop closed.2024
• SuperUROP scholar with Daniel Jackson (MIT Software Design Group) building Kodless - a system that generates fullstack web apps from natural-language prompts, with a TypeScript backend framework (conception) and a reactive frontend DSL.2023
• Started a free public competitive-programming winter camp in Azerbaijan in 2023 (repeated 2024), teaching C++ and algorithms to 8000+ students with recorded lecture playlists - he converted his own IOI background into national talent pipeline work.2023
• Was on the staff of MIT 6.101 (Fundamentals of Programming) for four semesters and helped teach 6.102, 6.S063 and 6.1040; has taught 2000+ MIT students - teaching is a stated core passion, not a side role.2024
• Published peer-reviewed work in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A: a control system for the IsoDAR ion-source experiment with Daniel Winklehner, done as an MIT Research Assistant from 2021 - a physics-instrumentation detour before software research.2023