[frubar]

>So I decided to go at it on my own and charge a rate I felt I was worth. Best career decision I've made so far.

I think this, above all else, is the key to the frustration and ever decreasing salaries we're seeing. The market has spoken: employees just aren't worth that much. If you want to capture more of the value you create you'll need to go into business for yourself. It's risky, but sitting a desk in a huge office watching rates go down and down will probably turn out to be more risky in the end if you can't retire before it gets too bad.

Having said all that, would you mind expanding on exactly what you did?

[tmat]

I started by talking to my friends and networking with people who needed developers, using online sites to find people hiring or seeking developers I could pitch on my services(this works amazingly well), and doing content marketing to get some SEO and exposure for myself and services. I started with a rate that was a little more than my salary when I left to cover things like savings, retirements, insurance, taxes etc that my job paid and raised my rates any time I had to much work to do. See my other response in the thread for more details.