He studied Physics at the University of Kiel and the Technische Universität Darmstadt, where he received his doctoral degree with a thesis entitled "Design, construction and testing of a corrected electron energy loss spectrometer with large dispersion and a large acceptance angle" (in German: "Entwurf, Bau und Erprobung eines korrigierten Elektronen-Energieverlust-Spektrometers mit grosser Dispersion und grossem Akzeptanzwinkel") in 1987.

In 1989 he became Group Leader within the Physical Instrumentation Program at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) where he had already performed some experiments during his doctoral studies.

[2] He won the 2011 Wolf Prize in Physics, along with Harald Rose and Knut Urban, for his contributions to electron microscopy,[3] specifically for the development of a device to correct electron-optical aberration using magnetic multipole lenses.

Haider built the first prototype and he is the founder (with Joachim Zach in 1996) of the German company Corrected Electron Optical Systems GmbH (CEOS), which manufactures and sells their invention.

In 2015 he also received the Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Microscopical Society (Hon FRMS)[8] and the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) Award.