Schroeder started taking formal lessons on guitar playing from David Koval at age twelve. When he was eighteen he joined the band The Violet Burning, only to become a guitarist and one of the founding members of a shoegazing band The Lassie Foundation from Southern California a few years later, who described their style as "pink noise pop". He played guitar on three full-length albums and toured with the band since 1996, before they went on hiatus in 2006. He has mentioned I Duel Sioux and Pacifico as his band's favorite albums; he had maximum creative time on the latter. His other side project is The Beat Concerto with friend Eric Campuzano. He joined the Smashing Pumpkins' touring lineup in 2007, but also recorded for the new Lassie Foundation album in late 2007 and early 2008.
On April 6, 2007, rock rumor webzine Buddyhead reported that Schroeder was the new guitarist for the Smashing Pumpkins, replacing James Iha in the new line-up. Schroeder toured with the band throughout 2007 and 2008 and appeared in the music videos for "Tarantula", "That's the Way " and "G.L.O.W." In June 2010, Schroeder appeared in a live Internet stream playing on a demo with the band's current lineup. Following the departure of Ginger Pooley in 2010, Schroeder remained the only member of the band besides Corgan still present from the 2007 revival show in Paris. On April 17, 2010 Schroeder played the first show with the newest lineup of Smashing Pumpkins, which included Jimmy Chamberlin's replacement Mike Byrne on drums and The Electric Prunes bassist Mark Tulin. When playing live with the band, Schroeder plays Gibson model guitars like the Gibson Les Paul, the Gibson SG and the ES-335; and Fender models like the Stratocaster, the Telecaster, and the Jazzmaster. He also uses Washburn Guitars live. Since 2010 he has used a Randall amp MTS system with custom preamp modules by Salvation Mods. In 2018, after performing and recording with The Smashing Pumpkins for over eleven years, Schroeder remained within the band's core line-up, alongside returning founding members James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin. Reflecting on the importance of this, Schroeder noted: "I personally had a pretty touchy moment for myself in that I was sitting there tuning my guitar , and then I looked around and saw Billy, Jimmy, and James. And then I look through the window and see Rick Rubin, and I thought like, 'Wow. This is a really special moment.' To think that when I joined the band it was such a different scenario, that to even think twelve years later you'd be at this point, it was really unfathomable. So I really kind of took a second and took it in."
