You could always use www.evolute.io with free credits and simply shift between the free usage tiers, across platforms. If you develop your software in a “serverless” fashion, you might even find a way to be “free” for the foreseeable future.
You're taking the marketing approach as opposed to coming up with real solutions -- think critically about the business need, investigate the cost savings and make a transition plan for those who actually add value to the organization.
1) Consider if your organization has a future strategic value for having the org capability in house (is this datacenter simply a necessary evil or does your organization deploy new technologies to new locations for any part of its business)?
If so, you may be outsourcing a core part of your organization's capability (consider it). If not (e.g. these are all simply HR and other general business systems [ or services which do not depend on anything physical], you should proceed to evaluating costs
2) By the thought that you would outsource the majority of jobs means that you probably shouldn't have had the employees in the first place (in the Fortune 50 I know, we mostly used contractors with a quarter dozen employees). Hence I would evaluate if there are other business units which might benefit from their skill (power related, analyst related et al) and offer training per the previous notes.
A good decision to be a part of and my hope is that your answers here inspire the right questions (to allow for the right transition plan for your organization and company as a whole).
Agreed that the IP assignment is a big issue albeit you should never join a company to gain IP on a technology that will be used for a different industry (i.e. all startups focus on a platform/specific technology for one industry than move/multiply to others). In my personal opinion, it's all in how closely related the idea is (hence the recommendations for seeking an attorney). At the end of the day, I think you may be safe if you
A) have no specific ideas/ideals built into the software from your current company
B) do not leverage company resources, assets or even insights to have improved the capability of your product (i.e. your knowledge is complementary, not created or originated close to the product the company has created)
C) Prove that you deployed your product capability prior to having shifted and/or joined the company
1) In the end, if you really are big on this -- you should probably leave the company and be able to demonstrate to yourself and your investors that you deployed capability (or planned product) prior to joining the company.
2) I would be less concerned here assuming your time here is under 6 months, you can simply not choose to display it (i.e. the idea that you'll be YC ready in the next 6 months -- enough time for you to belittle/reduce/erase the time you were at the current company -- would mean that you're a lot further along. Thus by the time you're YC ready, none of this will have mattered.
P.S. I think you'll be good with YC. As a member of an existing top accelerator (Forbes B2B top rated) in Silicon Valley, most of them do not care if you have a similar idea (speak to the impact and traction instead of the idea), I believe your differentiation (not having taken from the company) and purity of code (not having been influenced or using company resources) will set you free.
Now is the time to recognize your motivations and turn them toward something better. Hunting for a job is much like hunting to attract members of the opposite sex:
1) Everybody wants someone who is already taken
2) You can't win unless you play the game
3) To get a 10, you at least need two 5's
Stop thinking of the perfect job and start thinking of ways you can build your experience to get the perfect job. With a little bit of excercise (P90 and Cracking the Coding Interview), some hero moves shown in the right places (pick the job doing something you care about) and a few peeps talking about your moves on the scene (a little open source), you'll be back in the game in no time.