No worries, I think you have the right read on the prestige issue. Of course in an academic research center, no one makes any money and prestige is reserved fo

No worries, I think you have the right read on the prestige issue. Of course in an academic research center, no one makes any money and prestige is reserved for grant-winners and first authors in Nature. Publications would be hard as a non-PhD. If you wanted to focus on that, I have found that PIs welcome outsiders into their research groups. I'm certain you could put yourself in a position to publish with the same amount of credit as a grad student on a team (not much?). Especially with good data hacking skills, someone will be willing to help you scratch that publication itch. I think it would be like having a major side-project in addition to a fulltime job though. Oddly enough, even though the work I do here is less technical than what I have done in the private sector, I seem to perceive a slight up-tick in respect from enterprise software groups.