[blhack]

Do you mean get hired, or do you mean keep doing research?

Consider Alexander Shulgin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Shulgin#Life_and_care...

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.

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.

[polyfractal]

While Shulgin was certainly a very cool fellow and did exceptional research, he also had a pretty unique situation. Being friends with the head of the DEA he was able to get a DEA license to work on scheduled compounds.

Your average Joe won't have those kind of connections, or even access to current literature, which rather limits you to certain fields (i.e. not anything biology, chemistry or probably physics).

[blhack]

OP isn't asking about doing things that would be normally regulated by the DEA.

I'm just using Shulgin as an example of somebody who went "screw it" and kept researching things on their own.

[polyfractal]

Yeah, fair point. And hey, this guy built a mass-spec in his garage, so a lot can be done in a non-academic environment:

http://benkrasnow.blogspot.com/2011/03/diy-scanning-electron...

[polyfractal]

Whoops, I meant an electron microscope, not a mass spec!

[AnupSavvy]

excellent!!!

[AnupSavvy]

I am really glad to see you people sharing your thoughts and comments. Every comment comes like a new idea to me. Thanks!!

[AnupSavvy]

Thanks!! thats motivating. As of now looking for a job that helps me do research. I keep looking into new things on my own but that doesn't pay me and hence I think it forces me to look for options that involves routine software jobs. I have been looking for junior positions at all those places mentioned above but I couldn't find a match for myself.

[AnupSavvy]

on the other hand, I would also like to know how do people collaborate to do some research work or publish papers if they are not enrolled for any degree program. Professors play an important role in guiding the research and hence I am curious to know how do people come up with theories or results without guidance. Is there any website where such like-minded people can be found ? or ycombinator is the best place ?

[blhack]

Check out http://www.kaggle.com, they host machine-learning contests.

[AnupSavvy]

Nice!!! I always knew of such things but never thought of these places from research angle. Working on those problems itself is challenging. May be I could keep an eye on such competitions going ahead so that even if I have to take up a less interesting software job in future, I might be able to at least satisfy the urge to work on something interesting by working on those problems with brilliant people.