bit of a weird situation and not sure how to think about it. ive been freelancing for about three years doing mostly media production stuff, some surveying. a company reached out that does infrastructure inspection and they want to bring me on as a staff pilot. salary would be around 58k to start with benefits and they said theres room to grow into a lead role managing other pilots eventually.

on one hand thats more stable than what ive been doing. some months freelancing ive made double that annualized and some months its been genuinely scary. on the other hand 58k feels a little low for the responsibility they're describing and i'd basically be giving up my flexibility and my own client relationships which took years to build.

has anyone made this kind of switch either direction? i cant tell if im being precious about my independence or if staying freelance is actually the smarter long term move. the benefits are genuinely appealing because right now health insurance is killing me.

58k does sound a bit on the lower end for infrastructure inspection work, especially if theyre expecting you to eventually manage a team. i'd push back on that number before you decide anything. not saying decline, just negotiate. worst they say is no and you're back where you started. the benefits argument is real though, i took a staff role two years ago partly for that reason and honestly the mental load of not worrying about invoices and dry spells is worth more than i expected. i still do some personal projects on weekends just to scratch the itch but having a base salary changed my life a bit.

i dunno man, client relationships you built yourself are genuinely hard to rebuild if you ever leave the company and try to go back to freelancing. like those are yours and once you go staff you kind of put them on ice. might be worth at least trying to negotiate a part time or contract arrangement first to see how the company actually operates before fully committing. some places that sound good in the interview turn out to have you flying the same three routes every week which would drive me crazy personally. just something to think about before signing anything.