<human>: So here's the deal:

I am a young software developer who is basically in the infancy of his career, and I realize how important it is to make connections and learn from those in your field who are much better and smarter than you. 

While most graduates nowadays are lucky to even find a job, I have been fortunate enough to have a job that enabled me to occasionally meet and chat with a number of senior developers in the U.S. tech and software industry.

Due to the nature of my contact with them, I am usually not the only bright young programmer chatting them up. While I tend to start engaging conversations with the potential contact, I notice that my young colleagues are the ones making a bigger impression. Hopefully I am wrong, but I have attributed their success in having further contact with these industry gurus to the relentless campaign of asskissery from my peers. 

I am uncomfortable constantly asking or saying something that I feel the potential contact wants to hear. I also fear that talking too much while not giving the others a say will make it seem like I am trying to hard to impress the potential contact.

NOTE: I am not trying to immediately score a job out of this. I have a good job at the moment. I think many of the potential contacts would be useful in future career paths I would want to explore, so it would be great if I could make enough of an impression that they would want to keep in touch. How do you do this when you are a relative nobody, and there are flocks of peers each vying for the same slice of attention, ready and willing to flatter the target.

Can you summarize the given text in a few sentences?
<bot>: How do I make meaningful connections with contacts in the software/tech industry without seeming like I am trying to hard or ass-kissing.