Deal Participation Structure Negotiation

I’ve been interviewing the past few months for a development position after building a rental portfolio the past couple of years. Previously worked in family office M&A, master planned community development, and have an MBA. Last job without deal participation paid 130k + 20% bonus. Looking to get back to working on larger deals.

I had an interview with a family office land developer and it’s one guy developing with some admin assistance and 40 years of experience. Thinking this could be a good mentorship opportunity with access to capital in the future for my own projects. He mentioned 60k base which I said was too low but he wanted me to think on a structure that would work for me and he’d rather give me higher pay through incentives than base. All in it could be around 200k but that’s all on me.

The bonus/participation would be determined based on my level of involvement on each project. My initial thoughts are a promote structure based on a fixed % of cash flows, a milestone bonus system based on a % of the deal value, or I wing it and let him pay me as we agree deal by deal with the expectation set that I get to ~175k+ all in. Thinking that could get messy but would leave me more of an opening to exit to my own company and partner in the future.

How would you structure comp here? What do you think I should ask for? The ball is in my court so anything else that I should be asking for in this scenario? Should I see if I can run through my own LLC as a partner rather than an employee from the jump?

Separately, would you take this opportunity over a development position at a larger well-recognized firm offering higher base and less bonus? Top priority is getting big deal experience and growing my deal sheet right now.

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