Upon graduating from the department of architecture of Kazakh Polytechnic Institute in Almaty in 1968, Tuyakbaeva moved to work at Kazgorstroyproekt, where she participated in designing residential buildings for oil-workers settlement Novyi Uzen in south-western Kazakhstan. In 1969, Tuyakbaeva was sent to the city of Turkestan to work on the restoration of Ahmad Yasawi mausoleum. In 1970, with A. Proskurin, Tuyakbaeva went to Tashkent to the Directorate of Preservation and Restauration of Monuments at the Kamza Institute of Art Studies, where they worked on the restoration project under the academic guidance of Leah Mankovskaya. Based on this research, Tuyakbaeva defended her doctoral dissertation. The restoration was conducted between 1972 and 1980. In 2003, the Ahmad Yasawi mausoleum was included into the UNESCO list of world heritage sites. In 1983, Tuyakbaeva was awarded the title “distinguished architect of Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic.”

In 1981, Tuyakbaeva headed the Kazakhstan ICOMOS group; between 1984 and 1996 she was the head of the regional council of ICOMOS for Central Asia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan. In this role, she supervised the work on the ten-volume Full Catalog of Monuments of History and Culture, on the preservation of historic centers in Almaty, Taraz, Uralsk, and Fort-Shevchenko. Tuyakbaeva is the author of three monographs, numerous articles, and several documentaries promoting cultural heritage.

In 1980, Tuyakbaeva became the inaugural director of the newly opened institute Kazproektrestavratsiya, tasked with detecting and surveying architectural monuments. Between 1993 and 1995, Tuyakbaeva became the director of the short-lived Department of Historical-Cultural Heritage under the Ministry of Culture of Kazakhstan. After the department was disbanded, she became the head of research at “The Silk Road–Kazakhstan” national company.