How Networking Can Supercharge Your Tech Career

Most people cringe at the word “networking.” It conjures images of awkward cocktail parties where everyone is scanning the room looking for someone more useful to talk to. I get it. For a long time I avoided it too. But here’s the thing: after my first two jobs, every single one of my subsequent positions and consulting projects (eight and counting) came through a connection. Not a job board, not a recruiter cold email. A person.

So let me share what I’ve learned about networking that actually works.

It’s a Long-Term Strategy, Not a Transaction

The biggest mistake people make is treating networking like a vending machine: insert favor, receive job.

Real networking is just relationship building. And good relationships take time, consistency, and above all, genuine interest in the other person. The “network” that eventually helped me land opportunities wasn’t something I assembled strategically. It was the natural result of years of working with people, staying in touch, and actually caring about what they were up to.

Think of it this way: the person who will refer you for a dream job five years from now is probably someone you’ll meet in a completely different context. A colleague on a project. A professor. Someone you helped debug a gnarly problem. You can’t predict which relationship will matter most, which is exactly why you should invest in all of them genuinely.

The Foundation: How to Build Good Relationships

If you want people in your corner, there are a few things that matter more than anything else.

Do great work. This is the non-negotiable starting point. Your reputation is the single most important asset in your career. People refer people they trust, and trust is built by delivering. If you want to be the person others recommend, be the person others can count on. (I talk a lot about this in my post on becoming a senior software engineer.)

Help others, generously and proactively. Did someone in your network just post about struggling with a deployment issue you’ve solved before? Send them a note. Know someone who would be a great fit for an open role? Make the introduction without being asked. This is the single best investment you can make. Adam Grant’s research on “givers” vs “takers” backs this up: the most successful people in most fields tend to be the generous ones.

Be genuinely interested in people. Not just in what they’re working on, but in them as people. Remember things. Follow up. Ask about the side project they mentioned last time, the job transition they were going through, how things turned out. This isn’t a technique; it’s just being a decent human being. But it’s remarkable how rare it is.

How to Actually Reach Out

Okay, but what about reaching out to someone you don’t know well, or at all? This is where a lot of people freeze up. Here’s what works.

Ask for advice, not a job. People love to talk about their own experiences and share what they’ve learned. “I’d love your advice on X” is almost always easier for someone to say yes to than “I’m looking for a job.” Start there. It lowers the stakes and shifts the dynamic from transactional to collaborative.

Ask about their path. “How did you end up working on computer vision at [Company]?” or “What was the transition from academia to industry like for you?” are great opening questions. Most people don’t get asked about their own journey nearly as often as they’d like. It’s a natural conversation starter, and you’ll almost certainly learn something useful.

Be specific. Generic asks get generic (or no) responses. Compare these two:

• “I’m interested in ML. Any advice?”
• “I noticed you’ve worked on histology image processing. What are some tools or libraries in that space I should know about?”

The second one shows you’ve done your homework, it’s easy to answer, and it signals that you’ll actually do something useful with the answer.

Ask for an informational interview. This is a well-established practice that’s underused. Reach out and ask for 20-30 minutes to learn about their work and their career path, explicitly not to ask for a job. This framing makes it much easier for them to say yes. And often, if the conversation goes well, they’ll naturally offer to help further. Here’s a good primer on how to structure these conversations if you’ve never done one.

Always end with this question. Before you wrap up any conversation, ask: “Is there anyone you can think of that I should talk to for additional advice?” This is one of the most underrated moves in networking. You’ve already established some rapport, the person is in a helpful mindset, and this question is low-effort for them to answer. A single warm introduction from someone you just met can open a whole new branch of your network. Make it a habit.

Who should you reach out to? Great sources include former colleagues (especially from projects where you did strong work together), professors, and LinkedIn connections who share a mutual contact. That last one is key: warm introductions have a dramatically higher success rate than cold outreach. If you see someone whose work you admire and you share a connection, ask for a brief introduction before reaching out directly.

What About Networking Events?

Networking events are… complicated. In my experience, the chances of landing a job directly from attending a meetup or conference are pretty low. Why? Because most of the people there are also looking. You end up with a room full of people who all want the same thing from each other.

That said, I don’t think you should skip them. Just shift your mindset about what success looks like.

Go in with two goals:

First, how can you help others? Bring something to give, not just to get. Do you know of a good resource on a topic that keeps coming up? Can you make an introduction between two people in the room? Do you have a perspective on a tool or framework that might save someone hours of frustration? Being the person who gives value freely, with no strings attached, is how you become someone people remember and want to stay in touch with.

Second, use it as low-stakes practice. Networking events are a great place to sharpen your elevator pitch, a clear, concise answer to “so what do you do?” and “what are you working on?”. Knowing how to articulate your value proposition quickly and naturally is genuinely useful, and the stakes at a random meetup are low enough that you can experiment with different framings without much risk.

A Final Thought

Networking gets a bad reputation because a lot of people do it badly: treating it as a means to an end, only showing up when they need something, and disappearing otherwise. That version of networking feels off because it is.

But when you invest in relationships for their own sake, when you do good work, help people, stay curious, and genuinely care, the career benefits tend to follow naturally. Not always quickly, and not always in the way you expected. But they follow.

The eight jobs and projects I mentioned at the top? None of them started with me “networking.” They started with me trying to do good work and be a good colleague. The opportunities came later, from people I genuinely liked and who I’d like to think genuinely liked me back.

That’s the kind of network worth building.