In my experience, the ability of managers to recognize top talent when they have it is faulty and takes a long time. They tend to get false positives as they in

In my experience, the ability of managers to recognize top talent when they have it is faulty and takes a long time. They tend to get false positives as they incorrectly value delivery time over things they can't measure, like quality. I can't count the number of times I've seen someone be praised in a group email or meeting for claiming to have fixed some urgent issue (with duct tape and bubblegum), and every single time without fail it was not worth the price and I at least cursed that person after in private. "Top talent" is also generally kind of a bin for a wide spectrum of people from ridiculous coding savants beyond compare to people who just think deeply and have been around a bit. Also in my experience, what seems to matter a lot is experience. People who have failed and learned and who know good practices when they see them will just make more good decisions which won't come back to bite later. I've found having some people with good experience and communication skills around can be great if they can be positioned to support less talented or experienced people. Finding a good balance and people with reasonable dispositions is important.