> I was quite willing to work for a lot less than many folks much less qualified, on account of having my retirement set, and was looking for interesting and engaging work, more than money; but it never got that far.

Did you think to work with blockchain? It has a lot of engaging problems, and you can start even without getting hired. It ranges from helping out DAOs in open-source and getting paid in tokens; to starting off your own small project and building a community.

As for the jobs, the compensations has been through the roof lately – the field doesn't get new developers nearly at the rate needed