Do you have a specific startup idea? If you do, you could use some of the money you earn and something like elance.com / crowdspring.com to get a Minimal Viable

Do you have a specific startup idea? If you do, you could use some of the money you earn and something like elance.com / crowdspring.com to get a Minimal Viable Product up and running. Then you can start testing it out, while still keeping your job. If things are working out, take the plunge, if not, you won't go broke. If you don't have a specific idea, you could go to hacker meetups, colleges and find groups of people with an idea and a team and join them. Offering to do some work and pay for food, servers etc. - I could sure use someone like that right now ;) Finally if you already have 4-6 years of a similar role under your belt then you can probably move back into a similar role anytime you wish. But if not, you probably need the years on your resume in case you want back in. Moral of the story - it's not a binary decision, you can be doing both at the same time.