[chuck9302]

What about becoming a penetration tester? Its a much easier to go from developer to pen tester than from developer to security researcher, though thats not to say its easy either. Plus working as a pen tester its highly likely you will have colleagues who are security researchers, you can talk to and learn from them. There aren't generally "junior security researcher" roles available, you'll have to start somewhere and pen testing is a good foot in the door, it also involves breaking things so that might satisfy your itch too.