As a very senior (and hopefully talented) software engineer, you should be getting a fairly decent paycheck. Here two workable options, bound to get you the result you want, with a degree of risk: 1) Save money while working on "side-projects" at home. If and when one of them take off you should be able to fund through early growth 2) Join a very small, interesting start-up and take a relative pay cut for equity. If the start-up grows you will naturally assume a technical leadership role such as Director or CTO.