I think computer science is still held hostage to academia if you are interested in doing more creative work. There is a difference between "practical research" where you are developing new ways to solve problems or apply technology and "academic research" where you are developing computer science theory. However, if you want to do practical research, then opportunities are limited if you don't have a PhD. Without one it seems like the primary options are CRUD apps.

It doesn't seem like this is the case in other engineering disciplines or even outside of engineering.

I am not really sure how you are defining 'research' but I think your definition might be wildly different from mine. I have a feeling in the pit of my research that what you define as 'practical research' I would NOT define as research in any commonly accepted sense of the word.

> There is a difference between "practical research" where you are developing new ways to solve problems or apply technology and "academic research" where you are developing computer science theory.

this distinction doesn't hold water for me. look at adaboost! but moreover I am very curious what you think 'practical research' looks versus 'academic research'. Like there is a research spectrum in how abstract versus how concrete/empirical computer science research is but 'practical research' is often still pretty complicated/lots of theoretical concerns/ etc etc

> if you want to do practical research, then opportunities are limited if you don't have a PhD

research is hard and it people don't want to hire people for research roles unless they have a track record of doing research. the vast vast majority people with a history of doing 'good' research tend to have Phds. However this is not always the case.

>It doesn't seem like this is the case in other engineering disciplines or even outside of engineering.

I think this is highly unlikely.