So I am in a bit of an unusual situation. I will be graduating this summer and I have been in touch with a professor for a couple of months about postdoc positions in his research group. He encouraged me to write proposals for fellowships to fund my postdoc stint with him. Since these fellowships were very competitive and I stood a low chance of getting them, he promised me a year of funding if none of the fellowships came through. Unfortunately, none of them came through. We talked about the situation last week and he suggested that I join his group and write grant proposals during the first year to fund my second year. Now that seems like a very bad idea to me because I am also supposed to publish papers and plan for what comes after my postdoc. It's also problematic because I am an international student in the USA and I would go out of legal visa status pretty fast if things go bad and I become unemployed after my first year.
I haven't expressed any of these concerns to the professor yet [my fault, I was too shy]. However, I have been applying to industry jobs on the side and was recently made an exciting job offer. I have about a week to sign their papers which I intend to do. My question is, how do I communicate all of this to the professor? He is a very nice guy, seems super helpful and is a big name in the field but going the postdoc route seems risky and stressful at this point.
