In 1999, he joined the University of Waterloo's David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science as an assistant professor.

His invention of distributed pattern matching — a generic framework for distributed search in large-scale environments — has applications in many areas, including Internet-scale service discovery, decentralized Web hosting, decentralized social networks, and information-centric networking.

Awards and honours Boutaba was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2012 for contributions to network management methodologies and applications.

[9] In 2019, he was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the country’s highest academic honour.

[10] Boutaba received the 2009 Dan Stokesberry Award for particularly distinguished technical contribution to the growth of the network management field, the highest recognition for technical contributions in the area of network management.

In 2017, Boutaba was awarded an INRIA International Chair,[13] a research position typically held for five years, and in 2018 a University Research Chair[14] at the University of Waterloo, a position typically held of seven years.