[citation needed] She worked at the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute Of Technical Physics in the mathematical section.

[1] After World War II, the Soviet Union began an ambitious program to develop their own computing technology, creating systems to rival those in the United States.

From the 1960s to the 1980s, women represented half of the students in this area in Soviet universities and they later went on to work in the field, either as programmers or system designers.

[2] Zhilina developed algorithms and computer programs for solving problems in physics, mechanics and the non-stationary thermal conductivity of complex nuclear weapons.

Under her leadership, computer programs were developed to solve problems in the field of optimal trajectories of nuclear weapons, including their ballistics.