Atabullah joined the judicial branch of the Bangladesh Civil Service as an assistant judge on 15 February 1988.[2]
Atabullah served as the deputy director of the Judicial Administration Training Institute.[2] He worked in the DANIDA-JATI Project as deputy director.[2]
In November 2018, Narsingdi District and session judge Atabullah sent Bangladesh Nationalist Party politician Khairul Kabir Khokon to jail in connection with two sabotage cases.[3]
Dhaka Metropolitan Judge Atabullah rejected the bail petition of a police sub-inspector who had framed a man with Ya ba drugs with two police informants.[4] He was made an additional judge of the High Court Division on 31 July 2022 along with 10 others.[2][5] He and the newly appointed judges met with President Mohammad Abdul Hamid after their appointment.[6] In September, Atabullah and Justice Md Rezaul Hasan issued a suo moto ruling on the lynch mob killing of Taslima Begum Renu, a single mother who had gone to Badda to admit her children to a school there, on suspicion of being a kidnapper.[7] The bench called for exemplary punishment for all involved in the lynch mob killing.[7]