I believe, for some people, personal networking truly isn't an option. For example, I work remotely for U.S.-based companies while living in a rural area of Ge

I believe, for some people, personal networking truly isn't an option. For example, I work remotely for U.S.-based companies while living in a rural area of Germany. There simply aren't any professionals around here who do things that are similar to what I do, and whenever I meet any people at all IRL who are vaguely software engineers, their companies' pay bands top out at maybe half my salary expectation. So I don't just "organically" meet people IRL who could usefully connect me to my next job. My role at my company isn't outside-facing. I'm never in any meetings that involve vendors or customers or anything like that. And my company has been very clear, that if I want to do things like attend conferences etc., I'd have to do it on my own dime, and in my free time. Needless to say, the projects I work on are never open source. So where does that leave me network-wise?