In addition to being a prolific author in Arabic and Persian, he also occupied high-ranking offices, serving as the chief secretary and propagandist under the Khwarazmshahs Atsiz (r. 1127/8–1156) and Il-Arslan (r. 1156–1172).

He mainly composed panegyric qasidehs, but his rhetorical work Hada'iq al-sihr fi daqa'iq al-shi'r ("Gardens of Magic in the Subtleties of Poetry") is in prose.

There he became a katib (scribe) by craft, and moved to the Central Asian region of Khwarazm, where he remained the rest of his life under the service of the ruling Khwarazmshahs.

There Vatvat distinguished himself as a court poet, and as a result was given the post of sahib divan al-insha (chief secretary) by Khwarazmshah Atsiz (r. 1127/8–1156), which he retained under the latter's son and successor, Il-Arslan (r. 1156–1172).

Vatvat also praised them (particularly Adib Sabir) in his own poems, but his panegyrics were often written in a satirical way either due to the change in political climate or because of his notably bad temper.