Its amazing how the Google brand has become so synonymous with excellence in the world of tech. For example if you're a digital marketing agency that spends over $10K a month on Google Adwords you can become a Google Partner which is nothing more than a badge on your website but agencies flog this as if its the ultimate qualification and score big business contracts only to give Google the majority of that money through its ad platform

It really is brand recognition on a whole other level and with that they've been able to get away with so much. Someone with a PHD probably came up with the hiring process and because its Google no one has gone to question it.

Google also doesn't need to have all the best engineers some can afford to simply slip through in the hiring process because they're so big working in teams coders can work collaboratively and make sure any slacking is covered and also any average coder spending time in that environment will pick up certain tricks and ways of thinking that will turn them into a pretty good coder

Im glad you're happy with the way things turned out you can never really plan your career as much as they told you that while studying. Good luck and wish you all the best