The hiring pipeline at every big company I've been at is not always the same. Yeah, part of it is always just a big funnel that takes general applicants in and assumes they might end up anywhere in the company. But, there is also going to be a way for specialized teams to hire specialized candidates. If you find yourself in the big funnel, by all means, just tell them you aren't interested if that's not what you want. If you want to work on compilers, you need to find a way to get into the pipeline for a compiler team, and that's not really much different than finding a job with a small company.

Yes, I already did this with Amazon who hires for specific roles, but the recruiters I’ve dealt with seem to be into bait and switch (substitute very appropriate role I applied for with something completely inappropriate).

The job opportunities are definitely out there, but many of them really require a referral (the JDs aren’t posted), and even then you might have to do a generalist interview because the company is not capable of doing anything else.