[higeorge13]

I think the article misses the case that the manager is just an unprofessional idiot and fires someone (or usually more than one) just because he doesn’t like them.

I have seen in the past. They fired promising engineers out of the blue (no negative feedback until then) and for completely random and unprofessional reasons given, e.g. we think you don’t like us.

[mateo411]

Even if the manager is unprofessional idiot, the manager can't fire somebody without working with other people at the company, such as their boss, HR, and probably the Finance department.

They can certainly drive the decision, but they need the buy in of others too.

[higeorge13]

I was referring to small companies and startups where there aren’t such things and founding engineers are like gods within the company and can have such ‘professional’ attitude.

I have seen it happening.