A former employee of Dell, Subbaraju`s entry into the world of cinema was pure chance: a duty call to fix a PC issue at filmmaker Krishna Vamsi`s residence led to a small part in the latter`s movie Khadgam in 2002. Since then, he has appeared in around a hundred films, primarily in supporting and negative roles in Telugu cinema. Some of the actor`s best known roles have come in movies like Amma Nanna O Tamila Ammayi (2003), the Kollywood action drama Pokkiri (2007), Dookudu (2011), the Bollywood action comedy Bbuddah... Hoga Terra Baap (2011) Mirchi (2013) and Srimanthudu (2015).

Other significant acting credits in recent times include the epic fantasy action film Baahubali: The Conclusion (2017), the Allu Arjun starrer Duvvada Jagannadham (2017), Nela Ticket (2018), the romantic comedy Geetha Govindam (2018), Ranarangam (2019) and Premasura (2019). His 2020 release includes Nishabdham.