I was a developer for about 11 years before I started in leaderships positions "by force" (in a fast growing startup). For me as a technical person, being a ma

I was a developer for about 11 years before I started in leaderships positions "by force" (in a fast growing startup). For me as a technical person, being a manager is very difficult, there are a lot of subtleties of people interaction got completely lost to me several times... One time I "gave a rise" to a guy and the way I put it he felt I was conditioning the rise to something else... it was subtle and I did not know until after a year later while talking to him. People relationships are difficult. Then there is the "game" to play as part being part of a company (once you are at the manager/director/vp level, you have to understand that you represent the company to your peers. I have something very interesting happen to me, one week I was a developer, peer of my colleagues, we joked a lot and had a lot of fun interactions at work. Next week I become "director of Engineering", become their boss, and the interaction changed completely (it was not something I did, it literally changed from one day to another). Now, on the current state of things, I would not search a lot to what the company told you, regarding why they let you go. At a previous startup I was, at some point we had to make cuts, and all the VPs and C levels sat down in a meeting looking at each of our teams, and then each team had to decide to cut 2 people. It was ruthless, and every manager had to explain to the person why they were let go... The best thing would be, if you had a more friendly relation with your manager, that now, after the fact, you can have a informal call with him and ask him, what do you think you could have done better in general to avoid being affected by the layoffs in your company.