disenchanted_ds

US...so take that for what it's worth re: health insurance. :-/

Thanks! Very helpful.

Thanks. The macroeconomic climate is also something I've been curious about, too. The timing may be awful, especially if it doesn't work out and I want to get back to a full-time job when no one is hiring. But being stuck in a role where upward growth is meager is draining, too. ("Oh, the bonus and raise pool is down again?")

I do know that even in my current job there seems to be willingness to pay a contractor rather than hire an employee...and I'm not sure how that willingness would change if the environment changes.

That's a great idea around retainers. I hadn't really been considering that as an option.

I've been thinking about even trying to approach this from a value-based pricing perspective a la Jacques Mattheij. Seems like that could be an easier approach to selling, in terms of positioning myself as an expert instead of just a coder-for-hire.