First of all, f### "first-world problems" when it comes to something like this. It's personal and it's your life. You only get to perceive one run at this one.

I posted a few things in Patrick's thread that I won't repeat here[1] regarding the move from a simple hourly rate to the ~$1m+ range.

The thing I would work on in your case are your basic assumptions. I would try to get past the "long-term high-security relationship."

It's good to have long term relationships but they are never going to be highly secure. Instead, work on maximizing your value and adjust your income accordingly. If you do think of relationships, think of it in terms of your reputation and your network. If you went to a decent school, use the alumni network. If you worked at a company that has a "former employees" network, use that. Keep in touch with people you've worked well with, even if it's just watching them on LinkedIn and congratulating them on a move or helping them find a new job/gig/whatever.

It's something that can be tough to crack the first time, but you're in a good position already. "Enterprise-level architectural programming" is nerdalinga for "Enterprise Architect," "Consulting CTO," etc.

Getting the first big "gig" is usually a matter of timing your availability with opportunities (i.e., what unlucky people call "luck"). Reach out through your network and have people recommend you. The first strategic position you take will probably be similar to what you have now, but at least you can put your shingle out as "Consulting Enterprise Architect".

Then you should work on getting a couple marquee clients to put on your NASCAR slide. They don't have to be massive, but they should be respected companies. I targeted the top of the Internet Retailer 500 and established build, launch, replatforming, infrastructure, scaling, and security relationships with enough > $1b/year sites that new clients ask about what "leaders" do in the industry. Enterprise work is mostly about minimizing perceived risk.

It's good if you can build partnerships with platform vendors. For example, Oracle PS don't really like to touch projects below a certain size, so I get a lot of semi-qualified leads in the ~$1m range that I can knock out in about four months with a few fellow consultants/friends. If you bring in the vendor to one of your clients, they'll usually keep in touch and mention prospective clients even if they're not going to go out on a limb and drop your name on the desk. I wouldn't knock myself out on this, though – just make sure you are the one making the introduction and are present at the pitch meeting.

Also, you'll need to be solid when talking at the C-level. Get your presentation skills down, have a suit or ten made (cough go to Anderson & Sheppard once and Shanghai soon after), and gain confidence that you know what you're doing.

You're going to have to get out of your comfort zone a little bit. I actually loved interviewing (both sides) so the sales process (which is generally just letting someone validate claims made by a referring member of the network) is not unpleasant.

I'll also tell you the biggest secret of "consulting": find out what people are complaining about. Write that down on slide one. Find out (or know) how people resolved the top three problems on that slide and put them on slide two. Make those slides beautiful and extremely succinct, so you're conversing, making eye contact, and reading body language. Make it look easy.

One last thing: You should become aware of the product market in this area. EAI is a massive opportunity and even if you just build a toolset leveraging Mule/Camel/ActiveMQ/etc., that's a product you can license to clients. I don't often advise this, but saying there's no productization opportunity leads me to recommend one of the Enterprise Integration Patterns books.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5963096

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5963169

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5963135

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5963113