While a student there, he won a competition to become a translator for Ismailia's provincial government at a monthly salary of E£13; in 1888, thanks to his command of French, he moved to the press bureau of the Interior Ministry.

In the following year he won a competition for the post of translator for the Cabinet, for which he became adjunct secretary in 1897 and secretary-general in 1911, serving until he retired in 1921.

During World War I he also recodified Egypt's administrative procedures in keeping with its status as a British protectorate.

Ahmed Zaki pasha worked also as a sports executive and was one of the first Egyptian board members of Zamalek SC in 1912.

A prodigious writer of articles and short books, he did not live long enough to complete what would have been the crowning achievement of his scholarship, an Arabic dictionary modeled on the French Larousse.