[jamessb]

But most of the people in the 'Research' departments of companies will have PhDs. For example, see the list of full-time positions at MSR [0]: both 'Researcher' positions require a PhD (Researcher - "Successful candidates will have a Ph.D", Post-Doc Researcher - "Applicants must have completed the requirements for a PhD, including submission of their thesis, prior to joining Microsoft Research"), and it sounds like it is helpful for some of the 'Technical' postions (Research Software Development Engineers - "RSDEs are strong software developers with a Bachelor’s Degree, and often a Masters or Ph.D. in computer science"). There are 'Non-PhD Researcher Opportunities', but only in India and China.

[0]: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/jobs/fulltime/default.as...

[tellarin]

I'm at MSR in China and I have to say that, even though there are a few researchers without PhDs here, they are not that many.

And having a PhD and a body of work does help a lot in the interview cycles.