He designed the structure of the train station in Dresden and was a lecturer at the Moscow Engineering College of Railway Roads (1889–1904).

Paton was a professor at Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and the Chairman of the Bridge Department from 1904 to 1938.

In 1934 Paton founded the Electric Welding Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR in Kyiv.

His idea of all-welding received support by the then-head of the Ukrainian Communist Party, Nikita Khrushchev.

During World War II Paton supervised the design and production of equipment and technology for automated welding of special steels for tanks, bombs, and other military hardware.