Schneider was also a member and president of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

He graduated from the Royal Technical School at Chemnitz, Germany, in 1864, after which he worked as a mechanical engineer.

While in New York, he met Charles Macdonald and worked with him for the next year at the Delaware Bridge Company.

He was also involved in the 1906 construction of the Longteng Bridge in Taiwan, a development that was never finalized after its collapse from the 1935 Hsinchu earthquake.

He was twice awarded the Norman Medal which "recognizes a paper that makes a definitive contribution to engineering science,"[2] in 1905 and in 1908.