[2][3] Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Shear attended Homestead High School in Cupertino, California.

[4] Shear received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Claremont McKenna College in 1990 and a master's in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard University.

[5] Shear's reporting career began in 1989, when he was a junior in college and interned at the Los Angeles Times' Washington bureau covering hearings on Capitol Hill and other high-profile stories, including the trial of Oliver North and the anniversary of cameras in Congress.

[citation needed] After graduation, he worked briefly as a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News before returning to full-time education to pursue a degree in public policy.

[9] His book, Border Wars: Inside Trump's Assault on Immigration, co-written with Julie Hirschfield Davis, was published by Simon & Schuster in October 2019.