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> I usually do not have another job lined up when I lose my current one, so I've been taking one mediocre job offer after another to make ends meet.

This is your problem: to make ends meet. You're a programmer by profession, your salary should be enough to have significant savings.

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I'm not a typical programmer, though. My savings are used up whenever I am unemployed, and I've probably spent 1/3 of my post-college time unemployed. I want to know how to increase my bargaining power while I'm in this situation of making ends meet.

What if you didn’t wait until you’re unemployed to start thinking about the next opportunity?

What about contributing to a community, with open source code or a tutorial or a conference presentation?

Regarding your last statement- while doing these things help, the lack of doing these things isn't necessarily the cause of the problem.

I know that plenty of programmers have never contributed to open source, nor written a single line of code outside of work, and they still have no problem finding or maintaining jobs.

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