Ask HN: 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): very 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?