Ask HN: How to take the leap mid-career?

I’m in my early thirties in a very-well paying non-tech career and contemplating a switch into the startup world. This is largely driven by hopes to tackle some of the more fundamental challenges of our world, the idea that small firms offer a better ground to contribute to/enjoy a positive working culture, and some idea to have more time for my family (compared to a lot of traveling and 70+h/w at the moment). While not working in tech, I do have an engineering background and some limited dev skills and good industry insights. I’m also confident to be able to execute projects/products in agile environments and with challenging customers. I’m lucky to have accrued enough savings to sustain my family’s down-to-earth lifestyle for ~4yrs, but still wary about long-term implications of disrupting my career.

I’m wondering how to best go about it:

1.) Find a CTO role at a startup of interest. However, early stage startups often require more hands-on dev skills than I’d be comfortable with. Later stage roles are exceedingly rare in Europe. Career risks would be a bit more limited

2.) Take a non-exec role at a startup and use it to test the waters and grow from there. Easy to get but a huge break for my career

3.) Found. The two ideas I have would be very heads-on against established players. I’d risk my capital. Alternatively, take time off and find other ideas (how to best go about it?)

4.) Stay and make the corporate world a better place

Anyone with experience in similar situations?