The best programmer I worked with was the tech lead for my second job, at a startup consultancy firm.

He was brilliant. Could understand a very deep and complex business system and remember all the hundreds of table and convuluted logic built into the system, but it was a bit overwhelming listening to him talk since he would overload so much information in such a short time frame

Maybe the better word is clever or brilliant. I have also worked with other programmers who build such systems, I think the best programmer just builds simple things