Staring an electrical division with an MP firm

Throwaway account because I am known by coworkers on here.

TLDR: I’m in southwest Texas and I am curious if I should join a smaller 10 person MP firm and help create and be the head of the electrical department with 5 years of experience PE coming from a 90 person MEP firm starting at the end of 2024?

Context: I am a recent Electrical PE with 5 YOE and many years of organizational leadership in startups, youth groups, various jobs since I was 14. I am 29 now. I have not used my PE stamp yet because of my current company structure but I can do office buildings, TI and small scale med offices all day.

I always thought of myself as a businessman in an engineers body and I enjoy engineering management a lot. I enjoyed training and onboarding entry level folks, interns, project management, delegating and teaching. My project portfolio with my company is commercial, educational, municipal and healthcare work. My current firm probally has a 20-40% stranglehold on the local MEP market. The budgets I’m living in are 10 to 50 million dollar Constuction budgets.

I have the opportunity to join an MP firm of 15 people and start an electrical department. The MP firm has been around for 25 years and does a lot of the smaller projects around town that my current firm doesn’t do. I did a pretty detailed business plan, and the current owner seems to like my ideas and thinks I have a chance to thrive. Admittedly, I’m a younger engineer with a lot to learn and technically speaking I have never been the strongest. But most of my coworkers and current bosses agree I have great management chops. The company is just a bit top heavy with a lot of people for me to work through.

I have good relations with contractors and architect, and I can bring in a little work such as some local TI’s. But no way I can bring in enough to support my own salary until at least 6-10 months in I would say. The MP owner understands that since this is basically growing a firm scratch.

The MP firm have their reason for wanting to develop a team rather than purchase a whole electrical firm. I am getting a decent budget to get a designer and senior/PE on the team as well in the first few months and we can go from there. MY experience is that finding folks technically strong and wanting nothing to do with management isn’t super hard in this region. Just make sure I pay them well basically.

This is definitely high risk high reward in my eyes since I am young and I have 2 young kids. But if not now, then when. I’ve always wanted to prove myself.

I told the owner that I need a compensation package that can push my wife into part time or SAHM territory so I can focus on the company. And a decent equity ownership package too. We are taking some time to be careful so the projection is fall/winter to bring me on board.

Is this career suicide to jump ship and work on smaller projects? Am I crazy? How much equity, salary and profit sharing would you ask for? What are some negative I need to consider? Any owners want to give me thoughts and tips?