Roger Schmidt was born on 13 March 1967 in Kierspe, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He never played professional football at the top level: a midfielder in Germany's lower and amateur regional divisions, he turned out for Rot-Weiß Lüdenscheid, TuS Plettenberg, TuS Paderborn-Neuhaus, SC Verl — where he made more than 200 appearances across seven years — SC Paderborn 07 and SV Lippstadt 08, while studying mechanical engineering at Paderborn University and working for the industrial group Benteler International. He moved into coaching in 2004 as player-manager of Delbrücker SC, hanging up his boots in 2006 but staying on as manager until 2007.

Schmidt took his first full-time job at Preußen Münster in 2007, staying until March 2010, before a season in charge of SC Paderborn 07 in 2011-12. His breakthrough came at Red Bull Salzburg, where he arrived in June 2012 and, in 2013-14, won the Austrian Bundesliga and the Austrian Cup double, beating SKN St. Pölten 4-2 in the cup final; the same side announced itself in Europe by thrashing Ajax 3-0 in Amsterdam on the way to the Europa League round of 16. That earned him a move to Bayer Leverkusen in April 2014, where he spent nearly three seasons and reached the Champions League knockout rounds but won no silverware, leaving in March 2017. He then managed Beijing Sinobo Guoan in China from June 2017 to July 2019, winning the Chinese FA Cup in 2018, and took over PSV Eindhoven in March 2020, lifting the Johan Cruyff Shield in 2021 with a 4-0 win over Ajax and the KNVB Cup in 2022, again at Ajax's expense.

Benfica announced Schmidt as head coach on 18 May 2022, and he made an immediate impact. In 2022-23 he won the Primeira Liga with 87 points, Benfica's 38th league title, sealed on the final day with a 3-0 win over Santa Clara on 27 May 2023, and led the club on their deepest European run in years: Benfica topped a Champions League group containing Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus and Maccabi Haifa with 14 points, swept aside Club Brugge 7-1 on aggregate in the last 16, and went out in the quarter-finals to Inter Milan, losing 2-0 at home and drawing 3-3 in Milan for a 5-3 aggregate defeat. He added a second trophy on 9 August 2023, beating Porto 2-0 in the Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira, having signed a contract extension to 2026 earlier that year. The 2023-24 campaign fell away, however: Benfica finished second on 80 points, ten behind champions Sporting, lost the Taça de Portugal semi-final to Sporting and the Taça da Liga semi-final to Estoril on penalties, and were knocked out of the Europa League quarter-finals by Marseille on penalties. After a poor start to 2024-25, and a day after a 1-1 draw at Moreirense in only the fourth league game, president Rui Costa announced on 31 August 2024 that Schmidt was no longer Benfica's coach, thanking him for the two titles won in his two and a bit years in Lisbon.