Having won all major International Skating Union (ISU) Championship titles at the junior and senior levels, Zagitova is the youngest and second women's singles skater, after Yuna Kim, to have completed a Super Slam.

Since then, she has co-hosted multiple seasons of the Channel One Russia show "Ice Age" and has done commentary and interviews at Russian figure skating competitions.

[3] She is the daughter of Volga Tatars Leysan Zagitova and Ilnaz Zagitov (ru),[4] an ice hockey coach from Tatarstan.

[3] This season, Zagitova began performing all of her jumps in the second half of the program to earn bonus points on the base value, giving her a major technical advantage over her competitors.

[16][17] Zagitova's international debut came in late August 2016 at the 2016–17 ISU Junior Grand Prix (JGP) competition in Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, France.

[19] Her total score at the event, 194.37 points, was the second highest ever achieved by a women's single skater on the junior level, behind only Polina Tsurskaya.

[20] She then won the bronze medal at the JGP event in Slovenia, behind Japanese skaters Rika Kihira and Marin Honda.

[24][25] Competing on the senior level in late December, Zagitova ranked third in the short program and second in the free skate at the 2017 Russian Championships, winning the silver medal behind her training partner, Evgenia Medvedeva.

[16] Then in February, she won the gold medal at the Russian Junior Championships and was assigned to compete at the 2017 European Youth Olympic Festival.

[31] Zagitova and her coaches decided to keep her Don Quixote free skate from the prior season, but she had a new short program to music from the Black Swan and Moonlight soundtracks.

[32] She made her senior international debut at the CS Lombardia Trophy and won,[5] after placing third in the short but first in the free, with a total score of 218.46.

[34] At the Cup of China, she was fourth after falling in the short program, but she rallied to win the free skate and won the gold medal overall.

[39] Zagitova won the 2018 Russian Championships, in the absence of her teammate Evgenia Medvedeva, finishing first in both segments for a total score of 233.59 points.

[60] At the Japan Open, she helped Team Europe finish in second place by winning the free skate by 28.90 points over Kaori Sakamoto.

[65] With two gold medals, she qualified for the 2018–19 Grand Prix Final, which was expected to be a tight competition between Zagitova and Rika Kihira.

[66] At the Grand Prix Final, Zagitova won the silver medal, behind Kihira, after she "popped" an attempted triple toe loop in the opening combination of her free skate.

Zagitova delivered a clean skate in the short program and received a season best score of 82.08,[73] which was more than five points ahead of Kaori Sakamoto, who placed second.

[77] Additionally, with this victory, she became the second women's singles skater after Yuna Kim to achieve a Super Slam, meaning she won all major international competitions at the junior and senior levels.

[82] Then in the free skate, she under-rotated three jumps, placing third in that segment behind Kostornaia and Mariah Bell but won the silver medal overall.

[86] She was less successful in the free skate, falling on a double Axel and having several other jumps deemed underrotated or downgraded, and finished sixth in that segment and overall.

[102] However, by the time of her hiatus, Zagitova's technical achievements had already been surpassed by her teammates who began performing quadruple jumps and triple Axels.

[105] She is also a two-time winner of the Silver Doe Prize, awarded by the Federation of Sports Journalists of Russia, as one of the ten best athletes of 2017 and 2018.

[110] She was named "Sportswoman of the Year" at the 2019 Glamour Russia Awards[111] and "People's Sportsman" (as determined by VTsIOM) at the 2019 Sovetsky Sport ceremony.

[94][116] Zagitova appeared on the cover of the March 2020 Russian edition of Tatler alongside teammates Anna Shcherbakova, Alexandra Trusova, and Alena Kostornaia.

[119] She has also advertised for Shiseido,[120] Sberbank of Russia, smartphone game Madoka Magica,[121] and PepsiCo's brand of flavored water "Aqua Minerale Active".

[125] After turning 18, she posted on Instagram in support of the 2020 Russian constitutional referendum which extended Putin's presidential term limit.

[127] Zagitova owns an Akita Inu dog named Masaru, given to her by a Japanese breeder as a gift after the Pyeongchang Olympics.

[130] She enrolled in the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration to pursue a degree in journalism, which she received in July 2024.