Most of the advice you receive will be to do a PhD as that's what most researches have and what they do.

That may be hard without a bachelors degree, prior research knowledge, and potential academic recommendations.

One way to short-circuit this is to take your software engineering skills to a research lab and work as a research assistant.

This allows you: a) contact with academics who are doing research b) the visibility of what research actually is c) to add value from day one

Most labs are in heavy need of software engineers to help with software related tasks.

So first focus on what type of research you are interested in (look at as many research labs in as many different disciplines as possible) and then contact them to see how you can help.

This! In fact, I know a couple of researchers who started as programmers in research groups and research labs, and slowly transitioned into PhDs and later, faculty positions. Especially if you have specific skills. I think the kind of labs that would hire you would be: biomedical research, energy research, some national labs. You will even be a coauthor if your contributions are important and substantial. Though admittedly, in some fields, nth coauthor with n != 1 or N where there are N authors doesn't mean much.

Edit:

To make it explicit, here are some ideas:

1. Medical research institutes: Weil Cornell, Salk Institute, Mayo Clinic, U Texas-MD Anderson, Cleveland Clinic, UCSF, U Pittsburgh Medical Center, Oregon Health & Science, U Wash Medical Center, U Minn Medical Center, University of Penn, Harvard/MGH, etc.

2. Energy-related labs: Argonne, Oakridge, Pacific Northwest, Lawrence Livermore, Lawrence Berkeley, Los Alamos National Lab.

3. Other national labs: Defence research labs, Army Research Labs, AFRL, Office of Naval Research, Woods Hole Oceanographic, Naval Research Applied Research Labs Austin, TX/Penn State, Georgia Tech Research Institute.

I would add to the list http://bids.berkeley.edu/

BIDS actually recruits software engineers, some are working in OSS exclusively. Since they are in Berkeley, I would drop by and interact with them, they might have some insights for you.

I will stop by. Thanks!

Thank you! I will get deeper into that!

Very interesting. I dropped out of school early but I managed to get my degree through a special program (in France). I have the equivalent of a bachelor or master degree (not clear how the US convert it).

Try working at a research-based agency or research branch of an university. I've worked at NASA and Georgia Tech Research Institute as a Research Scientist when I only had my bachelors. Bonus is both place will pay for you to get a graduate degree if you want one.

You can try working as a software engineer in some research project for a while, say at an industry research lab, then slowly make a transition to a research position (which may require a PhD degree).

Why are you leaning towards research, what part of energy sector interests you, and can you afford to take the time off from career for a little bit while you change tracks?

I think this is what I would like to do in the long run. I find it very interesting to focus on problems and try to find solutions.

For example, I had to work on a voice detection algorithm while working at Wit.ai, and I find it super interesting. I had to explore some research paper to implement and tweak it. I have no idea how interesting it would be to do that full time or part time but I think I would love it. More than working on business product, which I also like.

And what do you mean by "afford to take time off from career" ? Financially speaking?

Graduate school.

Thank you.