Not OP but there's one point of yours I take issue with:
> Supposedly seniors relying on recruiters and job offers instead of using their network, if they've worked with people in the past, and can't draw on that, I wonder how that is, is it that everybody they worked with are not nice people and don't like them ?
I'm good at my job, senior and even led teams (tech lead) a couple of times at large public companies by now and when changing jobs I couldn't use my network. I don't live in a tech hub (also sounds like OP's situation) and most of my former coworkers/managers lack ambition/drive to get to companies/teams I aim to get hired at. The reason being that most of the companies I worked for were not tech and this is a severe handicap - to put it in perspective I make almost twice what my manager made 5 years ago
> Supposedly seniors relying on recruiters and job offers instead of using their network, if they've worked with people in the past, and can't draw on that, I wonder how that is, is it that everybody they worked with are not nice people and don't like them ?
I'm good at my job, senior and even led teams (tech lead) a couple of times at large public companies by now and when changing jobs I couldn't use my network. I don't live in a tech hub (also sounds like OP's situation) and most of my former coworkers/managers lack ambition/drive to get to companies/teams I aim to get hired at. The reason being that most of the companies I worked for were not tech and this is a severe handicap - to put it in perspective I make almost twice what my manager made 5 years ago