Before I got my current job I reached the final round (of 4 or 5!!) at a startup where I was failed because I failed to say 'message queue' or mention RabbitMQ

Before I got my current job I reached the final round (of 4 or 5!!) at a startup where I was failed because I failed to say 'message queue' or mention RabbitMQ (the interview used to work for them I think) for a question of 'how would you implement whatsapp?' I was told I was a good enough lowly developer but not the right stuff for senior. So perhaps I'm bitter but, while they seem useful for specific purposes, it does feel a little religious and one of these presumed 'must have if we're serious' class of program when other solutions which architecturally resemble them might suit the problem far better. In my current job we interact with kafka and have definitely encountered many less than ideal aspects of its behaviour. But I guess that must be the junior developer talking again ;)