[aabbnanzhong]

Is that your father or mom who you got referral from or just some random friends? It's totally different if the referral recommendation is very strong. As a software engineering manager at Google I can tell you that you don't underestimate the power of managers these days. One can easily connect resources and asks for which team is actively hiring and put in some good words. Otherwise, if the candidate is that strong, why did he never spoken about being offered position at aws or even meta? Likely he just get rejected by minimum qualification requirement by resume.