Programmers at Google make no decisions. The only people 'making decisions' are the product owners and project managers.
> Even I found their coding interviews so damn hard.
A hard coding interview is not a valid metric on how good a place is to work.
> Google is considered to be the final nirvana and a Software Engineer badge the ultimate status of "you made it in life"
I've known people who feel like this as well. Some of them are still at Google and it's the best thing they ever did for their career.
On the other hand, I know people who felt this way, got a job at Google and it completely destroyed any passion for programming/computers that they had, to the point where they never worked in tech again.
Personally I feel it's dangerous to attach "you made it in life" to getting a job at Company X.