Software engineers move in packs and are more likely to be closer to their fellow devs than their other friends, the reason is quite simple, the esoteric field of software engineering can be quite lonely because the average person doesn't understand what it is you do with computers, there are so many inside jokes and witty remarks within the industry that will hit bullseye only around colleagues.
For newbies stepping into tech, you need get acquainted with eating each other's work, forking one another, dealing with commitment issues, the mêmes, videos, a lot of double entendres surrounding the art of pushing and pulling. You're in for a ride because devs are quite funny when you get to know them and bonding quickly helps you fit right in.
A fellow dev understands how much time and effort it takes to fail on a project, a fellow dev is always curious to see what's under the hood of your project, they want to understand the logic and they will celebrate things that appear insignificant to the untrained eye, the average junior dev is quite self conscious when it comes to their code so you might feel a little shy when your code is being reviewed, first timers liken it to being asked to strip in public, before long you'll look forward to code reviews and the comments, there's a lot of good-natured fun and learning to be done here.
This is especially true for backend engineers whose solutions don't interact directly with the clients, it's hard to explain to your friends your coding milestones and challenges, you can't exactly show them anything they'll understand. If you're just coming into the industry get friends within the industry (it's quite easy), if you're hiring please hire in teams, you not only boost productivity but reduce the likelihood of your only developer leaving your organization for an organization where he/she can find like-minded individuals.