[7] Shcherbakova began skating at age three in 2007 with her first coach Oksana Bulycheva at the Khrustalnyi rink of the Olympic Reserve Sports School No.

[10] She parted ways with Bulycheva in November 2013 at age nine and began training in the elite group at the same rink, led by Eteri Tutberidze and Sergei Dudakov.

[13] Then in February, she improved her total score by over 30 points at the 2017–18 Russian Cup Final to win the gold medal in the junior category.

At the 2018 JGP Slovakia, she placed first in both the short program and free skate, winning the gold medal by a margin of over 18 points over the silver medalist and fellow Russian competitor Anna Tarusina.

[19] At the 2018 JGP Canada, Shcherbakova once again placed first in both the short program and free skate and won the gold medal by a margin of five points over the silver medalist, Anastasia Tarakanova.

[21] In October, Shcherbakova competed at the 2nd stage of the 2018 Russian Cup and became the first woman skater to land a quad Lutz at a domestic event.

[27] Next, she competed at the 2019 European Youth Olympic Festival in Sarajevo and won the gold medal nearly thirty points ahead of silver medalist Lucrezia Beccari.

[28] Shcherbakova was selected by the Russian Figure Skating Federation to compete at the 2019 Junior World Championships in Zagreb, Croatia.

[30] In September, Shcherbakova entered her first international senior competition in Italy at the ISU Challenger Series event, the 2019 Lombardia Trophy.

[39] At the Grand Prix Final, Shcherbakova placed third in the short program behind teammates Alena Kostornaia and Alina Zagitova.

[49][50] She was assigned, as with other prominent Russian skaters, to the 2020 Rostelecom Cup after the ISU decided to base the Grand Prix primarily on geographic location due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

[55][54] Shcherbakova made history by becoming the first woman to win three consecutive Russian titles since Irina Slutskaya (1999–2001) and the first since the introduction of the ISU Judging system in 2004.

[57] Prior to the World Championships, she participated in the televised 2021 Channel One Trophy as part of the Red Machine team captained by Alina Zagitova.

She led after the short program but was later overtaken in the free skate by training-mate Maiia Khromykh after falling on her opening quad flip.

[65][66] Her first Grand Prix assignment was initially the 2021 Cup of China, but following its cancellation, she was reassigned to the 2021 Gran Premio d'Italia in Turin.

[70] These results qualified her for the Grand Prix Final, which was subsequently canceled due to restrictions prompted by the spread of the Omicron variant.

[73][74] However, in 2023, Valieva was stripped of the Russian title due to testing positive for a banned substance, so Shcherbakova became the silver medalist.

[75][76] At the 2022 European Championships in Tallinn, Shcherbakova placed fourth in the short program after falling on her triple Lutz and failing to execute a jump combination.

[84] Shcherbakova won the gold medal and become the Olympic champion ahead of teammate Trusova and Japan's Kaori Sakamoto.

[87] In early March 2022, the ISU banned all figure skaters and officials from Russia and Belarus from attending the World Championships due to Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February; therefore, Shcherbakova was not allowed to participate and defend her title.

[103] Alongside teammate Trusova, Shcherbakova is credited for ushering in the era of quad jumps in competitive women's figure skating, especially domestically.

Prior to Shcherbakova's senior domestic debut, not a single quad jump was landed by any of the woman skaters at the Russian Figure Skating Championships.

[108] Starting in November 2021, she became an official brand representative for Russian financial services company Sberbank and starred in an advertisement.

[111] Later the same year, with her father's advice,[112] Shcherbakova collaborated with Chinese company Geetaverse to release a collection of NFTs titled "Born to Skate".

This marked a new milestone as the quickest and largest NFT sales in China's sports industry for a single individual, with transactions totaling US$237,500 in a few days.

[121][122] Shcherbakova appeared on the cover of the March 2020 Russian edition of Tatler alongside teammates Alina Zagitova, Alexandra Trusova, and Alena Kostornaia.

magazine a total of three times: alongside Anastasia Bezrukova and Alena Arakcheeva in March 2019, and twice individually in July 2021 and December 2022.

[127] In October 2022, Shcherbakova joined fellow Russian Olympic champions Alexei Yagudin and Alina Zagitova as a host of the ninth season of Ice Age on Channel One.

[130][23] On 22 November 2022, Shcherbakova made her voice actor debut in a CGTN production titled "Revived Myths of Ancient China".