After working at two Startups, the latter one at hiring stage explicitly stating reading/implementing state-of-the-art methods as job description (Which I didn't end up doing), I've come to the impression that most of the time, this is not the case.
So I've been looking for institute/places that are more research focused, but almost all of them seems to put a PhD at "Minimum requirement" for application. Is there anyone out there that do more research related work, but ended up doing that without a PhD in the bag? If so, how?
For example, there's Ben from Lunar Homestead (https://lunarhomestead.com/) who presented his work (SPORE) at the Moon Society's last conference. He's done quite a job at educating himself and you wouldn't know he wasn't certified unless he told you. He's proud of it though and tends to tell people that education and contribution to science is something you can achieve if you put your mind to it.
If you want to be in a research position alone, I don't know what to say. There's jobs around that let you work closely with researchers as an engineer. I've been seeing a lot of those around lately here in Iowa, especially concerning crops.
Otherwise, the alternative is to monetize your research but then you'll be doing a LOT more than research. Research would probably be 10% after all is said and done.
If you plan to spend some years in reading and implementing papers to become a researcher anyway.. You can probably go back to school and get a PhD, this will be way more efficient than randomly reading without guidance.
Furthermore, a researcher do not spend his days to implement state of the art algorithms, he tries to push science a little further in very small steps, implementing is just part of the process.
Even when you have a PhD, pure research jobs are pretty rare but from your description you are more looking into innovative startups that implement SoTA papers (more R&D than research), this is more common and most of the jobs in robotic require some experimental setup and "research". In those startup the PhD requirement is often flexible !
But this "research" is often very different from the research done in academy.
Try to clarify what kind of research you want to do so that people can give you more precise advices :)
It's fun, interesting work with many upsides, like working with very smart people, flexible work week, possibility of teaching classes as a contract lecturer and making many contacts in industry, especially with R&D departments, since I work on many projects with industry funding. Not to mention, on campus daycare.
The downside is salaries don't compare to industry engineer salaries since, at the institution I work at, all RAs are unionized and on the same pay scale, no matter if your topic is law, biology, english or engineering. Moreover, it's a dead end internally: to become a PI/professor, I'd have to get a PhD and complete at least 1 postdoc, most likely in a different institution that is considered elite, and even then it's a crapshoot.
Think about it from the perspective of a person hiring for a research position. How would not having a PhD be a positive? Not having a PhD doesn't correlate with anything positive. It correlates with less training, less commitment, and less experience. And it correlates with the candidate not valuing these things.
The PhD is more in your control than finding a research position without one. Good luck.
If it provides someone with value, sure you can raise funds and generate revenue and dedicate your life for research. Of course it's easier said than done, but it's possible. Why not?
I believe that research-oriented tech startups can change the world and create/dominate new/emerging industries.
You'll have more skin in the game tying your research to a business, which will probably make you think bigger and change the world.
If done right (financing your research), you can have people more experienced than you are work with you, and learn from them.
Thank you everyone for the insightful replies!