> I feel in the tech industry, networking and knowing people only gets you so far

I think it depends how influential your connection is.

At my previous FAANG job, my director was tapping his network to back-fill some positions and i heard through the grape vine that she waved parts of the interview in order expedite the process.

it could've been a rumor, but then again the person who joined was terrible to work with so i'm biased.