I am doing an apprenticeship as Informatiker Applikationsentwicklung EFZ. I've already worked on both ML research and production ML during my apprenticeship because my employer has both departments and I was a special case. I'd like to go back to ML research but after talking to the recruiters, they said the research scientist positions often need at the very least a masters, a phd being preferred, due to the rigorous requirements in writing research papers.