Nithya Shetty worked as a child actress in Telugu films during the early 2000s appearing in films including Devullu (2000), while winning the Nandi Award for Best Child Actress for her roles in Chinni Chinni Aasha (1998) and Little Hearts (2000). Nithya Shetty completed her education and later joined Infosys as a software engineer.

However she wanted to continue work as an actress and successfully auditioned to be a part of the Telugu film, Padesave, before working on the family drama Dagudumootha Dandakor (2015). She has consequently featured in low budget Tamil films including Jayaprakash's Aivarattam (2015) and Kadhal Kaalam (2016).