When I was a minion at a medium sized software company, if you had emailed me at my work address I would have either not replied or would have done so very cautiously.

If we had met through friends or at a meetup, I'd have been happy to talk to you much more openly about my job and the workplace.

The best developers I know have contacts all over town. They occasionally go along to meetups and user-groups on things they are interested in - not in a cynical way, they just enjoy chatting to like-minded folk and learning.

I would suggest you start doing the same, with the warnings about appearing desperate as mentioned in jonnathanson's comment. You don't have to sacrifice your personal/family life, just go along to a meetup on some technology/language/topic of interest once or twice a month, be friendly and personable, swap details with any like-minded people and stay in touch with them on occasion.