Cha Joo-young made her acting debut in 2014 with OCN’s psychological crime procedural series Dr. Frost. The following year, she was cast in MBC Dramanet’s My Unfortunate Boyfriend and in tvN’s Cheese in the Trap. In 2016, she played a supporting role in the hit KBS2 sageuk Moonlight Drawn By Clouds. In 2017, she appeared in another KBS2 series called Jugglers, which earned her a Best New Actress nomination at the KBS Drama Awards. In 2020, she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the MBC Drama Awards for The Spies Who Loved Me. In 2022, she joined the SBS action-fantasy series Again My Life, which gave her another Best Supporting Actress nomination at the SBS Drama Awards. Later in 2022 and in early 2023, she gained wider attention for her performance in the popular Netflix revenge thriller The Glory.

Cha Joo-young graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in business administration.