This depends. I know people doing/with PhDs who are great theoreticians and good programmers but I also know people who (will) have all the creds in the world

This depends. I know people doing/with PhDs who are great theoreticians and good programmers but I also know people who (will) have all the creds in the world but simply know fuck all about actually making useful software/anything. Even in an industrial research context they'd be less useful than you'd think because they wouldn't be able to translate it into useful business applications.