Transitioning from engineering to research as an undergraduate RA
You make it sound like engineering and research are two contradicting things, but I think this view is falling short. Of course there are shallow implementation and verification jobs, but there are also plenty of engineering jobs about R&amp;D fiddling and finding clever designs and solutions, and then there are also (purely) academic jobs in engineering fields. Note that the boundaries between all of these are very much blurred and there is a variety of people in engineering ranging from hands-on tinkerers to purist mathematicians with completely different mindsets. Therefore, people in engineering hardly ever agree on whether some job or result is just derivative craft lacking conceptual contribution, useful high-level research, or disconnected theoretical work with pretentious notation but possibly useless and not much behind it. Also, implementation jobs can require a lot of clever thinking too, e.g. in analog electronics or large system integration.

Since you're at the undergraduate level still, I'd say it's totally normal to learn and follow preexisting ideas before engaging in great abstraction and developing your own branches. It's hard to make strong and novel conceptual contributions to your field if you don't know its basics. Do not underestimate the work put in by many, many very intelligent people before you (one tends to forget about this at times, e.g. when reading a bad introductory book) and rather try to gather their insights and grow from them.

About your problem at hand: I guess the best thing you could do, as far as that is possible in your environment, is trying to steer your next career choices in the direction of institutions and companies that value conceptual thinking and smart solutions and not only dull implementation workforce. Aim for courses, texts, project topics, internships, and contacts that push you more and more in this direction.