Exceptional engineers...can debug anything, quickly. Not by guessing - they shun superstition[1]. Instead, guided by instinct, but with rigor and process, they will narrow in on the root cause from different angles. They've a wide arsenal of sources and techniques to gather information; from the code and tests, the network, the OS, the DB, and from logs and metrics. They won't stop till they've found the actual root cause.

The linked article on programming via superstition is worth reading - it explains how developers often make changes without understanding why they work.