Sure, I'd guess the majority of engineering roles above junior are through networking of some sort. "Surely if you have skills"... well, what % of programmers out there fit this description? It's even weirder to think that every software developer has enough skills to have people knocking at their door.

In my situation I moved to a new city for family reasons with zero connections. I had a stable job working remote but put some feelers out and found a better job in my city by randomly applying.

It's actually weird you find it weird.