I've also conducted hundreds of interviews at Big Tech and my experience is far from OPs. I can probably count with both hands the number of times that someone was technically weak across the board, but they got an offer due to their attitude and soft skills. All of these occasions were for intern or junior roles.

I agree that companies overindex on pretense of technical competence (e.g. asking leetcode hard questions), but I'd be very skeptic of extending an offer for a software engineer role who has literally failed all tech rounds, much more for Senior+ roles.

I've also worked with people like Chen, upbeat, likable people who just don't seem to get anything done. Because they are so likeable they get away with it for a long time, because who can be mad at them? However this almost always turns into a net negative for the team.

Going back to OP, who is the title aimed at? if it is a wakeup call for companies and hiring managers to obsess less on obscure coding puzzles and value soft skills and experience more, I'm all for it. If it is advice for job seekers in the current market, I'd say you should still focus on tech skills.