Born to Tulu father and a Telugu mother in Bangalore, Shetty became interested in fashion shows while studying computer engineering in college.

[3] Sanam later chose to pursue a career as a software engineer with companies including Tata Consultancy Services in 2006, and briefly moved to the United Kingdom to continue working in the area.

She was later re-introduced to Chennai's fashion scene by choreographer Ganesh Gurung and regularly modelled for brands in the city during the weekends, while working as a software engineer during the week.

[7][8] Sanam continued to receive acting offers and completed a series of low-profile films including the Tamil-Malayalam bilingual project Ravu (2013) by Ajit Ravi Pegasus, Maayai (2013) and Vilaasam (2014), all of which went unnoticed at the box office.

[12] Sanam was also set to make her debut in Telugu films through veteran director K. Raghavendra Rao's Intinta Anamayya, playing a "NRI rockstar with a very modern outlook".

[18] In 2019, Sanam was belatedly crowned as the winner of the Miss South India 2016 beauty pageant, after the organiser opted to dethrone Meera Mithun owing to fraudulent activities.