My perhaps-naive response to anybody in this situation would be: you should always be building relationships with people who'd be happy to hire you at a moment'

My perhaps-naive response to anybody in this situation would be: you should always be building relationships with people who'd be happy to hire you at a moment's notice. To do that, you'll want to be able to talk about things you've achieved. Network with your community, give talks, etc. Get known as the person who can build things, or get customers, and you should be getting job offers. If you're quietly working on your own thing and nobody knows or cares about you, then yeah you're going to struggle to get a job afterwards. But if you're known as a person who gets stuff done, you should be able to get a job at least at a venture-funded startup, I believe.