 After working for a Batumi-based bank office in the mid-1990s, Pataradze joined the state service in 1996, first at an anti-organized crime unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Adjara and then the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia in 2000.In 2004 Pataradze became a second secretary at the Georgian embassy to Russia in charge of consular service; after Georgia and Russia cut direct diplomatic relations in 2008, Pataradze served as a consular officer at the Georgian interests section at the Swiss embassy in Moscow until 2009.Pataradze was then Georgia's consul general in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki from 2009 to 2010, consul general to Istanbul from 2011 to 2012, ambassador to Turkey from 2012 to 2013, and ambassador to Kazakhstan from 2013 to 2016.