> and these are oxford/cambridge/imperial/UCL grads.
There are many bad things we can say about software hiring, but one of the good things is that (outside the US at least), it's much more concerned with what you can do than the name recognition of the institution where you studied.
The US isn't that focused on elite schools. It's only in the VC/startup bubble where bias exists. Most tech grads don't go to those schools.