Incredibly I never went out of my way to do everything as wrong as possible. It just kind of happened without thinking about what is really bad, for the first couple years of my career. I would have assumed that to have so many red flags you'd have to actively work to get them, but here we are.
I've been following point 1 by making side projects that make more use of modern web development. Have some on Github and one on Heroku as well. What is unclear to me is which kinds of topics are usually taught in on-boarding and which are left to the candidate to learn for themselves. I don't have experience with mentoring or on-boarding situations which is why I ask.
As for the next point, I am trying to avoid companies with no IT staff as I've heard many times that they are not well suited to grow your career in tech. I also know from experience, been there, done that, hasn't worked for me, so it's time to move away from them. They are more "cost center" than "profit center" jobs and am following different advice to choose companies where software is at the core of their business.
I'll see what I can do with socializing with others for professional talk. The only people I speak with face to face are the places I grab a bite or coffee, etc. and typically otherwise just converse and chat with people in tech focused communities like this one.