Haddis was born in the Endodam Kidane Miheret section, the lower parts of Debre Markos, in the Gojjam province.

He wrote his first play during this period, YeHabeshan yewedehuala Gabcha (The marriage of Habesha and its backwardness) which displayed remarkably mature style.

In the early 1930s Haddis returned to Gojjam and worked as a customs clerk and school headmaster before moving to a teaching position at Debre Markos.

After brief stints in the department of Press and Propaganda and Ministry of Foreign Affaires, he became the Ethiopian consul in Jerusalem (1945–46), where he stayed for about two years.

During the era of the first two years of Derg regime (a newly brought military government taking the advantage of the Ethiopian Revolution), Haddis served as a member of the advisory body that had been created to replace the dissolved parliament.