[detaro]

> This is a personal judgment. He was passive aggressive in what way?

It's an exit interview, so that is an excellent question for HR to ask.

> excluded you from the team: How was he excluded?

same as above.

> code was awful: Again, is this a sentiment shared by other members of the team or is it just one junior engineer being super opinionated about something

Something you can correlate with other feedback, and see if it gets mentioned repeatedly, or not.

...

But you straight out just always assume the most negative interpretation, and then come to the conclusion that your prejudice was confirmed, and support spreading that outside the company.

[throw1230]

Yeah I've managed an assumption based on what I'm seeing here. That's all the data I have.

Similarly most everyone assumed that the manager went out of his way to talk shit about him. Managers don't go around and talk shit of their employees without getting prompted. If someone asks his manager "Hey I saw you worked with aroundtown, what was your experience like" you bet the answer is going to be crystal clear.