Obviously it works for them, but my opinion (coming from another field of engineering) is that this is not a good general-purpose hiring strategy or a particula

Obviously it works for them, but my opinion (coming from another field of engineering) is that this is not a good general-purpose hiring strategy or a particularly good way to manage your internal teams. The field is too broad to say that an engineer with some set of fundamental knowledge can be successfully slotted into any software development position.