HACKER Q&A
📣 legerdemain

How do you network as a developer?


I'm returning to the workforce after a sabbatical, and I'm realizing that my professional network is very thin. Former colleagues mostly work at FAANGs where they don't have any pull, or they washed out of the profession and went off the grid. What I've tried:

- online meetups: no opportunity to interact meaningfully with others

- a local hacker space: very few software engineers hang out there, it's mostly semi-retired former manager types not-really-working on impossible unfunded startup ideas

- Rust (IRL, on Reddit, on Discord): shallow community of mostly students and sycophants, actual Rust devs seem to work in isolation or only communicate on Twitter

What else should I try?

  👤 bckr Accepted Answer ✓
Define your goals in networking. Get more specific with whom you want to meet and why.

Find out where those people are spending time online and IRL. Determine how closely you are connected to them and if anyone you know can make an introduction.

Go to conferences and do your best to have quality conversations with several people.

Create content for the kind of people you want to meet.

👤 nivertech
Make a google spreadheet[1] with the list of your old industry contacts. Research. Prioritize. Start calling/messaging them. Say you want to catch up. Either have a catch up talk on the phone, and if they like it set up a coffee meeting (coffee on you;).

Before COVID I networked a lot. This is how I re-building my network.

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1. it can be any CRM tool really, but better to keep it simple

👤 gsatic
Make friends with some one who does network full time. People who are not engineers basically.
👤 beckingz
In person meetups are good. Some of the online 'code and coffee' events also are good chances to do some networking.
👤 smoldesu
> What else should I try?

Lowering your standards.