I’m not sure. I was referred by an employee several times at Shopify for instance and it did nothing for me. A referral in a lot of places is just so that the company knows who to give the referral bonus to if you’re hired but it doesn’t give you any kind of edge.
If the referral comes from a respected engineer known to the hiring manager and the candidate is a good fit for the open position, things can move pretty quickly.
If it's just a name thrown into a pot or entered into a form in some internal system, there isn't a whole lot of internal pressure.
