Shylnikouskaya (Russian Shilnikovskaya) graduated from Moscow Institute of Architecture in 1951, moving to Novosibirsk, Russia, upon graduation. There, she worked in design offices and taught at Novosibirsk Institute of Engineering and Construction. She participated in the design of the Academic Village (Akademgorodok) of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and of residential and public buildings in Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, and Prokop’evsk.

Between 1955 and 1962, Shylnikouksaya studied the historic architecture of Veliky Ustyug, Vologda region, Russia, surveying it on site and studying materials 17th- and 18th-century in the archives and museums of Veliky Ustyug, Vologda, and Moscow. Her book Veliky Ustyug. The Development of the Architecture until the Middle of the Nineteenth Century was published in 1973 (second edition 1987) and still remains an important source.

In 1966, she moved to Minsk, where until 1982 she worked in Minskproekt as the head of design groups, specializing in landscape architecture. She headed the work on developing the projects for expanding the green zones and water infrastructure of Minsk and its surroundings (1960s-1980s), including water reservoirs Krynitsy and Drazdy (1975-1976), as well as on the design of the rowing canal, park, and the riverbank in Zaslavl near Minsk (1976). Her other projects included recreational zones in Tsnyanka, Vyacha, Ptich, Raubichi, and Volma. The projects for parks in the eastern part of Minsk, around Slyapyanka water reservoir (1982) brought Shylnikouskaya and her colleagues (architects Lyudmila Zhloba, Mikalay Zhloba, Lyudmila Belyakova, Barys Yurtsin, Dzmitryi Gerashchanka, and engineer Alyaksandr Samonchyk), the State Prize of the USSR in 1989. Shylnikouskaya also participated in the design of the masterplan for Minsk (1982), awarded the Prize of the Council of Ministers of the USSR in 1985.