[8] With her current partner, Siti Fadia Silva Ramadhanti, Rahayu won the silver medal at the 2023 World Championships,[9] and a gold at the 2021 SEA Games.
According to Rahayu's cousin, her father served as her trainer, with a training regimen including running 10 kilometers to competitions and practicing on a homemade court behind his house lined with areca nut trees.
Sitti Jauhar was an enthusiastic player of badminton, table tennis and volleyball and encouraged Rahayu to be tough and competitive.
[17][19] In 2015, Rahayu won the bronze medals in the Asian and World Junior Championships in the mixed doubles event partnered with Fachryza Abimanyu.
[23] In 2016, Rahayu who was paired with Rinov Rivaldy in the mixed doubles won the bronze medal at the Asian Junior Championships.
[26] In May, Rahayu partnered with her senior and mentor Greysia Polii, and they competed as a new pair at the Sudirman Cup in Gold Coast, Australia.
[35] In January, Rahayu and Polii began the season by finishing as runners-up in the Indonesia Masters, losing to second seeded Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi in the final.
[36] A month later, the duo played as the third seeds in the India Open and won the title after beating the first-seeded Christinna Pedersen and Kamilla Rytter Juhl in the semi-finals, and the second-seeded Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda Prajongjai in the final.
[47] In the semi-finals, they beat their arch-rivals Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi in a close rubber game, improving their head-to-head record against the Japanese pair to 2–8.
[51][52] Polii and Rahayu then clinched their second India Open title defeating Chow Mei Kuan and Lee Meng Yean in the final.
[54] In June, she and Polii advanced to the semi-finals of the Australian Open after beating the first seeded, world number one Mayu Matsumoto and Wakana Nagahara in the quarter-finals, but the duo were beaten by Chinese pair Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan, the fifth defeat in seven meetings between them.
[55] At the World Championships in Basel, Switzerland, she and her partner won the bronze medal, after defeat in the semi-finals to eventual champions Matsumoto and Nagahara.
At that tournament, they finished as semi-finalists defeated by Chinese pair Li Wenmei and Zheng Yu in a rubber game.
[60] In March All England Open, she and her partner lost in the first round to Korean pair Chang Ye-na and Kim Hye-rin in straight games.
[62] A week later in the semi-finals of the Toyota Thailand Open, Rahayu and Polii fell in two games to Lee So-hee and Shin Seung-chan of South Korea.
[68] Rahayu and Polii's win made Indonesia the only country outside of China to have won gold medals in all five disciplines of Badminton at the Summer Olympics.
[10] This new pair immediately showed satisfying results, by winning the Malaysia and Singapore Opens,[73][74] and became finalists in the Indonesia Masters.
[75] In the first half of 2023 season, Rahayu, who competed on the BWF Tour together with Siti Fadia Silva Ramadhanti, was unable to win a single title.
The duo won a silver medal after being defeated by 1st seed Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan in straight games.
[89] She then made her second appearance at the Asian Games in 2022 Hangzhou, but unable to win any medals in both women's doubles and team events.