Ask HN: Advice for CS PhD Dropout Still Interested in Research

A few years ago I dropped out of my CS PhD program due to family reasons that were interfering with my studies; I plan to return one day. After dropping out I had a nice job working in an advanced development team at a large enterprise-focused company that was an applied research job, but unfortunately my company laid off my division. I later found a job at a different company doing DevOps/SRE work, but the transition from doing research to active firefighting turned out to be too much for me.

I'm currently trying to find another position (I'm based in Silicon Valley). I love doing research, but unfortunately it's very difficult to find a research position. I recently had an epiphany that the tech industry during this past decade has moved away from the types of applied research labs that HP, IBM, Intel, and Sun had in the 2000s and is moving toward a "research-oriented software engineering" model that Google pioneered and is increasingly becoming the dominant type of research position. While I'm capable of working as a software engineer (I had successful software engineering internships in the past with Google), the interview process for full-time software engineering roles has always been very difficult for me. I can answer FizzBuzz questions just fine, and I can also answer straightforward questions about algorithms and data structures, but I have a hard time with the more puzzle-like programming questions found on sites like Codility and HackerRank. I also don't have any side projects or open source work to show since I spent my undergrad years focused on preparing for grad school, and I spent my grad school years focused on coursework and research. I thought about becoming a lecturer at a community college or a university; while it's too late for the fall semester/quarter, it may be possible for the next term.

I'm very interested in receiving some advice about possible next steps for someone in my situation. Thank you.