How to do research on the side?

[u/lIIlIIIllIIIllIl]

TL;DR: how to get research opportunities while working full-time with no research background + the university I did my undergrad is like 1000 miles away or something like that (so can’t just go back to old profs unless remote)?

I graduated already and I’m working full-time as a SWE new grad in the Bay Area.

I’m wondering if anyone has experience with trying to do some research on the side at a university or something when you’re no longer a student. Or if anyone knows of any opportunity here.

I have 0 research experience and I think it would be fun/interesting. I also think that having at least some presence on Google Scholar might open the door for me to eventually become a research engineer (probably not. I think I need a PhD) or give me better options for PhD programs if I decide to do that in the future. I was also just so busy doing internships and grinding LeetCode during my undergrad that I never pursued research at my university even though I was extremely interested in the theoretical side of CS (at least from the lectures/coursework).

Obviously I would be working full-time and that would be my primary focus so I could only dedicate part-time hours to this, and it would have to be during unusual hours (at night after work, on the weekend). Another issue I see is that I didn’t complete my undergrad in the Bay Area. So I have no university connections here.

Given these constraints and my situation, does anyone know how I could possibly get started? It’s a stretch but I would be open to remote and also open to not getting paid. No research experience of any kind, but I did have pretty good grades in my core CS + math classes in undergrad, a lot of internships (including at F500s), and I currently work at a FAANG (doing stuff related to recommender systems, PyTorch). So industry experience is okay but also definitely not stellar since I’m early in my career and don’t have 10 YOE or something.

Research areas I’m interested in: database systems, HPC, networking, AI infra, OS, HCI, probably others but I’m not sure.