Upon graduating from the Kazakh Polytechnic Institute in Almaty in 1968, Mustafina proceed to work at Kazgorstroyproekt. In 1978, Kazgorstroyproekt team–Yuri Ratushny, Mustafina, Gulzara Jakipova, and B. Rzgaliev–designed the building of the Central State Museum of Kazakhstan (construction finished in 1985), in what has been described as regionalist postmodernism. Mustafina was a frequent collaborator of Jakipova and Albina Petrova, with whom she designed several landmark buildings of Soviet modernism, including the celebrated building of the Palace of Culture of Almaty Cotton Factory (1981; today the Natalya Sats Children Theater), which brought its all-women designer team the titles of “distinguished architects of Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic in 1982. Mustafina also contributed to the design of the Telephone Station building on Panfilova street (1983; with Anatoly Petrov, Albina Petrova, and V. Babenko) in a style that Petrova later described as high-tech, inspired by the work of Buckminster Fuller and Vladimir Shukhov.