Well-stated case for the pros and cons of freelancing, with a conclusion I completely agree with, that the former significantly outweigh the latter.
Personally, I have the best of both worlds, because my freelancing entails working at the client location most of the time, but on my schedule. If I want to start working at home at 7 AM and not drive in to the office until 10 AM to avoid traffic, I simply inform my client that I’m available for in-person meetings starting at 10:30, with the flexibility to adjust on those rare occasions when a meeting simply has to be in-person and start earlier.
Also, the fact the my main client is NASA makes the work incredibly interesting and enjoyable, working with bright, talented, motivated, and interesting people.
In addition, I take on a wide range of other jobs, including helping scientists who own their own small businesses write winning proposals to fund their work, helping them commercialize and expand their markets, helping smallish (up to 1000 employees) government contractors win engineering services contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and even coaching and teaching solo practitioner therapists in running the business of their practices.
This means that I get to work on lots of passion projects, have a wide variety of topics and challenges, and work with a broad range of people, all while getting compensated for every hour worked, with income that’s a large factor higher than my last academic job.
I’d never give all that up for a salaried position, even if it came with compensation considered astronomical in almost any field.
