At the beginning of his career, Ilias Atwani worked as a Mining Junior Engineer - Surface Mines where his key responsibilities included the following - Quarries and Collecting Ponds (Design and panels exploitation sequence, Production activities scheduling, Issuing drills and blast patterns and plans); Tailing Pond (Water management, ditches network design and activities planning, Active participation in the Tailings pond management - in association with an external consulting firm, Review and optimization of the stacking sequence)etc.