[syntheweave]

You have some time. When you come into sudden wealth(which is basically the case for big tech compensation), there's a need to "grow into it" and become sufficiently noble to use the resulting freedom to good effect, vs simply inflating your lifestyle and burning out on dull work.

What you want to do before leaving is, in essence, to polish up your diamonds and figure out what kind of investments you're making, in a personal capital sense as well as a financial one. The very biggest problems in the world are not a matter of engineering wisdom, but of social coordination. They are solved not by working on that problem directly but by carefully arranging some pieces of the puzzle - knowledge, tools, collaborators - such that anyone with some brains and energy could come along and realize the last steps by making it their life for a few years.

Now, you can be that person who makes it their life - and that's the startup, essentially - but you can also engage behind the scenes seeding the ideas, connecting the talent and the investments. What any huge, successful company is, is a kind of melting pot of ideas seen but not pursued, because the original mission takes precedence, and status-seeking behavior acts to reinforce that mission. There are actually a lot of people like you who aren't getting quite what they want from the work. Find them. Find out what's hot and worth paying attention to. Keep polishing the skills where you can. There's always a next thing(at least, as long as you're able to work). You don't have to pull any triggers or go against the company's wishes, you just have to prepare.