In 1912, Buisman joined the contractor Hollandsche Beton Groep (HBG), where he undertook works in the Netherlands and in Tanjung Priok in what was then the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia.
[1][2] Keverling Buisman's name became known through the publication of several papers, mainly focused on Applied Mechanics, and in 1919 he was appointed professor of this subject in the Civil Engineering Department of the Delft University of Technology.
[2] He gave his inaugural address, De toegepaste mechanica en het zuinig ontwerpen (English: The science of applied mechanics and economical design) on 12 November 1919, in which he focused on the role the subject plays in the development of the civil engineer.
[3] Keverling Buisman pioneered the implementation of scientific investigation into the challenges posed by the soft, water-bearing soils of low bearing capacity found in both the Netherlands and Indonesia.
[5] By the late 1940s the laboratory was under the guidance of figures such as Gerrit Hendrik van Mourik Broekman and Emmericus Geuze, a former student of Keverling Buisman, and was attracting interest amongst the nascent global soil mechanics community.
[6][7] Keverling Buisman's most important research in soil mechanics included works on settlement models for large earthworks, such as embankments.
[14][15][16] Keverling Buisman had acted as a temporary professor at Bandung Institute of Technology in the Dutch East Indies, to replace Jan Klopper who had returned to the Netherlands in 1925.
[17] In 1939, Professor Vreedenburgh was entitled to his scheduled leave to Holland, with Keverling Buisman once again called upon to undertake lectures at the Bandung Institute of Technology.