You may have to prove yourself by building your own successful product or a stellar reputation of doing similar heavy lifting at other companies before a company will trust you with that kind of role as a freelance gig.
There are folks who become “fixers” but they have a long history of being fixers and have usually worked in multiple different orgs achieving similar results regardless of org structure, strategy and cruft. It sounds like you are itching for such a career, but it requires starting somewhere. Many fixers also take full time leadership positions at the company for a period of time and then move on once the problem is fixed. The leadership position also gives you direct authority over the process and resources, which you will need as both likely need to be tweaked. That the project is failing is likely a combination of poor process and some bad apples, and both usually need fixing. It’s rarely that “everyone on the engineering team is incompetent.” Without the leader title you will not have the organizational authority to fire/hire or change process.
You may want to consider the offer of the leadership position seriously: The company sees the problem within itself, sees you as a fixer and is willing to hire you to do your magic. This is how you build your reputation in this market space. Give yourself three to five years to implement the changes, then move on to a different company with a different problem to fix. It’s also a great way to find out if you’re truly as awesome as you think you are :).
There are folks who become “fixers” but they have a long history of being fixers and have usually worked in multiple different orgs achieving similar results regardless of org structure, strategy and cruft. It sounds like you are itching for such a career, but it requires starting somewhere. Many fixers also take full time leadership positions at the company for a period of time and then move on once the problem is fixed. The leadership position also gives you direct authority over the process and resources, which you will need as both likely need to be tweaked. That the project is failing is likely a combination of poor process and some bad apples, and both usually need fixing. It’s rarely that “everyone on the engineering team is incompetent.” Without the leader title you will not have the organizational authority to fire/hire or change process.
You may want to consider the offer of the leadership position seriously: The company sees the problem within itself, sees you as a fixer and is willing to hire you to do your magic. This is how you build your reputation in this market space. Give yourself three to five years to implement the changes, then move on to a different company with a different problem to fix. It’s also a great way to find out if you’re truly as awesome as you think you are :).