I think it was Yann LeCun who said on a Reddit AMA that if you want to go into Machine Learning, a PhD is very much mandatory.

I'm doing a PhD myself right now in Machine Learning / Deep Learning. I started half a year ago. I don't have any bad experience yet. But I haven't heard too much bad things at all in Germany. My chair: http://www-i6.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/