Probably the best option would be to get into labs like IBM research, HP or Microsoft research lab but most of the time I have seen they take Phd candidates. Due to some reasons I am not in a position to go for Phd but I am interested in some work that encourages research work and publications.
Do you mean get hired, or do you mean keep doing research?<p>Consider Alexander Shulgin: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Shulgin#Life_and_career" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Shulgin#Life_and_care...</a><p>A bit of a hero in the bio-chemistry world. He was working at DOW chemical, and when he was assigned to a project that he wasn't interested in, he quit, and continued doing research and publishing from his house.<p>There is a lot of research to be done in the fields of computational linguistics and machine learning. Get yourself a coffee maker, and start hacking. You might eventually need to save up for some nice cuda gear, but there is no reason that you can't research from your garage.
You can get hired at all these places without a PhD. Your job title may not be "Researcher" though. At MSR, there is a category called "RSDE-Research Software Design Engineer", and at IBM Research, there is a related position. Your focus in these roles is to support the research activity of the lab. For some, this might mean writing grunt code. For most, this means being a part of the research team, doing actual research, getting your name on papers, etc. How do you get one of these jobs? Keep a lookout on HR web pages. Believe it or not, these positions do open up from time to time. You have to be a strong developer - very independent, as no one is usually there to hold your hand.
There are also government and commercial jobs for research engineers that don't require a PhD. You play as second fiddle but you still get time to work on improving algorithms or coming up with your own. Willow Garage has a job opening that you might look at: <a href="http://www.willowgarage.com/jobs/research-engineer" rel="nofollow">http://www.willowgarage.com/jobs/research-engineer</a>
You can also get hired at a research group in a university without a PhD (as a full-time developer for example). The pay is not competitive with industry, but you get to work on interesting problems. I do this at Penn State.
you can start doing independent research as has been suggested. you need to believe in yourself, however, and trust that the plan will pan out in the end. maybe it won't but did you have something to lose?<p>edit: also a valid set of questions might be: are you after recognition or personal intellectual growth? why do you think that organizations like IBM is the place for you? DO you need somebody else to guide you or maybe share the research experience?