I think for me it's all about hanging out with like minded people. While I get to do that at work and on Hashnode, it's really nice to meet the community in person and hear what they've been up-to.
You gain a lot in terms of keeping yourself up to date and making connections.
- What's the latest hip-tech out there now.
- What are the booming startups (I got to see the Hasura team present their work at a Docker meet-up last year) in your area .
- Connections (I got to know that Postman have their main development office in India, this is a tool every engineer in the world uses and who knew the creators were just a few KMs away from me).