kind of a weird situation, a construction company reached out after seeing some footage i posted and they want to bring me on as basically their in-house drone guy. it would be a salaried role doing site documentation, progress photography, some surveying work. benefits, stable income, all that. ive been freelancing for about 18 months and its been okay but the income is all over the place and honestly some months are stressful.

part of me feels like taking the staff job is like giving up on the freelance dream but the rational side of me knows steady money is steady money. im 31 with a kid so the stakes feel different than they did when i started. just curious if anyone has gone the in-house route and whether they regretted it or found it limiting creatively or whatever. the construction stuff wouldnt be the most exciting flying but i imagine id get really good at the technical side of things

took a staff position with a utility company three years ago and havent looked back. the flying itself is less varied sure but i learned so much about proper data workflows, ground control points, processing with Pix4D and Reality Capture, stuff i wouldve taken years to learn doing random one-off freelance jobs. and construction surveying is actually more technically interesting than people give it credit for, volumetric calculations and site monitoring is real work not just pretty photos. with a kid and a mortgage i think stability matters and you can always freelance on weekends if you miss the variety

i would kill for a stable salary doing drone work lol. freelancing sounds cool until its december and nobody wants anything shot and you're staring at your bank account. if the company seems decent and the work is legit take it. you can always go back to freelance later but a company offering benefits specifically for a drone role is not that common, at least not around where i am