Can you find a more local job? I spent a year and a half driving from Oakland to Mountain View, and a commute that long is absolutely miserable regardless of what form of transit you're on.

Problem is, I'm really enjoying my life of freelancing from home.

I know tons of people who've rolled the dice on "a very successful startup" and many of them hit snake-eyes. I know almost no one who is successfully freelance programming from home. It's always a challenge to keep the work lined up when you work freelance... but have you done everything you can on that score yet? It might be easier to spend more time on development than to go full-time for something you won't like as much.

I know almost no one who is successfully freelance programming from home.

By this I meant: good for you for having done so this long! You may really have something special if you can make it work.

I personally hate my hour long commute to my programming job at a start-up so much that I'm selling my house in the 'burbs and moving back to the city. As of August 1, I'll have a 15 minute walk commute to my office! Yay!

I probably could find a more local job, but probably not one that will pay this well. I could be wrong, but it seems like the money is flowing into the South Bay much more than it is into San Francisco (in fact, SF seems to be becoming more and more of a bedroom community for South Bay professionals).

The only reason I'm even considering is that my ex-coworker is talking it up so much and seems so eager to have me on board. It's nice to be wanted. :)

My dream life is to teach college part time and freelance part time. On the one hand, this job would prevent me from getting the teaching experience I need . . . but on the other, I'm not likely to get a teaching gig anyway until I get a book published. And the commute could theoretically give me time to get some serious writing done, something I'm struggling with right now due to lack of clear separation between "work space" and "writing space" and "leisure space."

The startup is successful enough that they allegedly just hired a hot-shot CFO (*rolls eyes, yawns*) from some other tech-oriented company that he grew spectacularly (*rolls eyes, yawns again* -- can you see how excited I am about the business and/or tech-business world?) and it's been around for several years, so I'm not too worried about having the rug pulled out from under my feet.

I can't say I've been an entirely successful freelancer -- again, I'm just barely making ends meet -- but I think I could probably ramp it up and make a semblance of a living, especially now that I've gotten pretty good at wrestling with things like Drupal, Wordpress, and Flash.

Since I wasn't looking, I'm inclined toward not taking it (assuming they make an offer, -- yes, all of this worrying may be moot), but another part of me feels like I'd be foolish to pass up a good opportunity that just dropped in my lap.

Anyhow, thanks for your thoughts and for letting me think/type out loud . . . it helps.