Chowdhury started his career as a quality and systems engineer assigned to General Motors' Delphi Division in 1993. From 1998 to 2003 Chowdhury worked as an executive vice president of the American Supplier Institute, which at the time was a provider of technical training for mostly automotive manufacturing companies in the U.S. In 1996, Chowdhury co-authored with Ken Zimmer a book titled
QS-9000 Pioneers. The book was an early effort to demonstrate how companies "revitalized" their manufacturing practices with standardized quality management processes. According to the book jacket, the book was endorsed by quality management experts Dr. Armand Fiegenbaum,
Philip B. Crosby,
J.D. Power III, and
Dr. Genichi Taguchi. Joining American Supplier Institute in 1997, Chowdhury began to work with his mentor Dr. Genichi Taguchi, developer of
robust engineering theory, and Taguchi's son, Shin Taguchi who is also an engineer. Together, they co-authored a book titled
Robust Engineering (2000) that was designed to help producers bring products to market at a faster rate and at lower cost, and yet maintain a high level of quality. Inspired by a book titled
The Leader of the Future, Chowdhury began collaborating with other management thinkers to analyze leadership and organizational development.
Management 21C was published in 2000 with contributions from
Peter Senge,
C K Prahalad, James Kouzes,
Barry Z. Posner, Sumantra Ghoshall, Christopher A. Bartlett, and
Rosabeth Moss Kanter. The
Six Sigma quality movement was reaching its height in popularity in 2001 when Chowdhury wrote his next book,
The Power of Six Sigma. Reported as a bestselling nonfiction book, some reviewers noted that Chowdhury made complex topics quality management issues easy to understand by using a fictionalized story to model important concepts. Continuing the collaborations he began with
Management 21C, Chowdhury completed work on
Organization 21C, published in 2002. According to the book, his goal was to present ideas and strategic solutions to "guide, influence and help" individuals and organizations with management and leadership challenges. Among the contributors listed are
Richard E. Boyatzis,
James A. Champy, Allan R. Cohen, Jay A. Conger,
Samuel A. Culbert, Christopher DeRose,
Dexter Dunphy, David Finegold, Elizabeth Florent-Treacy,
Rob Goffee, Robert L. Heneman, Harvey A. Hornstein,
Andrew, Kakabadse,
Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries,
Edgar H. Schein, and
Noel M. Tichy. In 2002, Chowdhury wrote two more books on Six Sigma.
Design for Six Sigma helped draw attention to emerging
DFSS methodology that simplifies an otherwise complex management theory. The follow-up book
The Power of Design for Six Sigma, stood out because unlike other books on the topic, Chowdhury successfully engaged a broad audience that included assembly line workers and CEOs to make Six Sigma even more accessible. These books lead Chowdhury to create a management implementation system he called "LEO" (Listen-Enrich-Optimize). This concept was later highlighted his book
The Ice Cream Maker (2005) and later expanded in
The Power of LEO (2011). His latest book is
Robust Optimization (2016) co-authored with Shin Taguchi. In 2017, Chowdhury published his 15th book titled ''The Difference: When Good Enough Isn't Enough.'' The following themes are found in most of his books: • Problems can be prevented through continuous improvement—getting it right the first time—and should be the goal of every organization as it designs, develops and deploys products and services. • Quality must be the responsibility of every individual in all organizations. The “quality mission” cannot be delegated to one group or individual. It cannot be a ‘top down’ management process. For quality to be robust and sustainable, everyone in the organization must not only accept it, they must believe in it. • Quality begins at the top. Without the commitment of leadership—and without them demonstrating that commitment in every aspect of their own lives, initiatives will stall or fail over time. • Everyone has a stake in Quality. Not only must quality involve everyone all the time, but in order to achieve robust and sustainable results, everyone must have a stake in its implementation and continuous improvement through peer reinforcement and other methods. • Quality is a balance of people power and process power, where “people power” takes into account the role of the Quality mindset”—approaching quality with honesty, empathy and a resistance to compromise. Process power is about solving problems, developing ideas and solutions, and then perfecting those ideas and solutions. • Improving quality using a cookie cutter managerial approach does not work. Every organization is unique. Every problem has different issues. Every individual brings different knowledge, skills, and abilities. Therefore, the methods, processes, and procedures used to solve quality issues must be tailored to the specific situation. ==Education and philanthropic work==