If we, here on Earth, are not unique precious snowflakes, then that makes the Fermi Paradox even more paradoxical.
Edit: thanks downvoter, can you point me to your source of knowledge about all technological life in our Universe? I'd settle for just our galaxy if that's easier to come up with.
The problem with the Fermi paradox is that it doesn't tell us much. It could tell us that colonizing civilizations are unlikely or have a limited lifespan, or it could tell us merely that colonizing civilizations don't work at all the way we'd predict.
Its conjecture is that physical travel to other civilizations is so expensive, and light-speed communications are so slow and inefficient, that the only way highly advanced civilizations communicate is by digitizing their consciousnesses and transmitting those, to be run in simulations on the receiving end. However, since you wouldn't want to transmit a copy of your own consciousness to an alien only to have it tortured or worse (even in a simulation), there are very extensive negotiations around trust involved before full contact with other civilizations is established.
Life is probably not that rare. Familiar life probably is.
Even on a macro scale though, I imagine you'd probably see some of the same themes (assuming an Earth-like planet): photosynthesis, bilateral symmetry, hemoglobin- or hemocyanin-based blood, etc.