In a professional capacity, Ahmed served as a Youth Program Coordinator at the Bedlam Theater in Minneapolis. He worked there on plays and poetry. He has also participated in an enrollment push for MNsure, a health insurance program in Minnesota. Ahmed and three other actors were picked from among more than 700 participants at a 2011 casting call at the Brian Coyle Community Center in Cedar-Riverside, Minneapolis. According to the search casting director, Debbie DeLisi, the four were selected because they were "the chosen ones, that anointed group that stuck out." In early 2014, he revealed that he was going to Los Angeles by the spring season in order to continue his acting career. In 2016 he partook in A Stray that was directed by Musa Syeed.

Captain Phillips

2013