Going to academia after research job in industry
Sure it's possible. You just need a strong-enough CV to compare against the people who did do the more traditional postdoc route. Couple of examples of people who did it:
Ivar Giaever became a professor at Rensselaer (RPI) without doing a postdoc, but after accumulating a lot of research experience at General Electric.
Anwar Ibrahim had teaching positions at Oxford, Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University without doing a PhD or postdoc, but with a lot of government experience.
W.E. Moerner after getting PhD worked at IBM research center, served as visiting professor, and later gained tenured professorship