Sharmarke’s first professional jobs were for a Somali bank and for Coca-Cola. He later went to work for the non-governmental organization Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives in Canada. Sharmarke went to work for the United Nations in 2000, serving in Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone and the Darfur region of Sudan, where he was a political advisor. He also worked as a foreign policy adviser to former Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf, who left office in 2008. Sharmarke was also selected as Somalia’s ambassador to the United States at that time but never took up the post.