I think that’s the gold standard for finding engineering (software) and work. Get out into the world by attending meet-ups about technology and start contributing to real world open source projects or volunteer at the many projects looking for devs. It may not be a job overnight but it will keep you busy enough to not stagnate and you will also open yourself to bumping into someone who may be looking for someone at one of the meet ups.

Both this and the OP you responded to are good advice if you aren’t in a situation where you needed a job yesterday.

What about situations where you were laid off and can’t really wait months to get a new one?

I guess the idea is to do this while you are employed so that you already have the connections when you need them. I can't think how anyone finds the energy to do this after a day at work though. You may also build this at work via former colleagues, but it depends a lot of the type of org and specific job.

The advice is probably to promptly ping obvious connections (which is what I did when I was laid off and it worked out). Failing that, depending on financial situation, either do unpaid work or become a barista.

That’s grim, to say the least.

I also think it’s more proof that tech hiring is broken. When good candidates can’t reasonably get in front of hiring managers without an “in” that means they’re missing out on a lot of really good candidates.

Think that’s the part that bothers me about tech hiring right now. You can’t even really get away messaging a recruiter at the company to start a conversation, I’ve heard from friends that recruiters simply don’t respond in most cases and I’ve heard from a few recruiters I know that they won’t consider it anymore because it became swamped with spam

I'm not sure why you think this is something about tech specifically or even something recent. Most hiring has always been about knowing people and/or some other signal rather than walking off the street other than in a really would-be employee's hunting environment.

ADDED: To be fair, it's probably the fact that, in tech, junior people coming in without any real credentials or otherwise out of the blue at this point probably face a lot of headwinds--especially relative to the last decade or so.

I don’t know about that with other industries

I know a few mechanical engineers and they haven’t seemed to have the same hurdles. One works in the car industry, a few others in industrial areas, they all switch jobs by simply applying online to their desired companies.

I know some accountants and people who work in logistics who cleared lower bars to get interviews, though I suspect the accounting shortage had some to do with the former.

Finance is very networking heavy but clearing their interview process in some respects sounds easier than the leetcode engineering grind but that may not be representative of the situation as a whole.

Networking never hurts, no matter the industry but tech has a self inflicted wound around hiring practices few other industries seem to have

Whether you consider this "networking" or not, the approach is to know relevant people in whatever way. Code, write, talk to people at events, etc. Ideally before you really need a job though because, as you suggest, it's not an overnight thing.