After a brief stint in the United States, he returned to India in 1946, and was appointed senior architect for the government of West Bengal.

In 1953, Rahman moved to Delhi to work for the central government, and designed various public buildings, including the National Zoological Park, and the Rabindra Bhavan.

From 1944 to 1946, he worked at the architecture firms of Lawrence B. Anderson, William Wurster, Walter Gropius, and Ely Jacques Kahn in Boston.

In 1953, Habib Rahman was appointed senior architect of the Central Public Works Department in New Delhi.

As per Nehru's requirements, the design of the tomb was not to conflict with the heritage sites, and to reflect the "humble personality" of Azad.

The tomb is a modernist interpretation of the chhatri, made up of white marble and cement, set in a charbagh garden.

In the early 1960s, he was commissioned to design the Rabindra Bhavan, which would house the Lalit Kala, Sangeet Natak and Sahitya academies.

[3] He also designed the National Zoological Park that opened in 1959 (which included historical ruins, and housed over a thousand animal species).