Mine was completely out of the blue, but I also wasn’t surprised as it was happening. I finished a project I wrote myself to replace an old system their other developers didn’t want to work on. They rewarded me by keeping me on for a couple months of post-launch support and then rewarded me by laying me off as a thanks, providing the bare minimum required payments as required by law. They likely replaced me with someone cheaper, which is impressive considering I was already underpaid for my level. I ended up getting a job paying 30% higher, but I honestly think I was still a little bit surprised when I proved I knew the old and new tech.

Realistically, that manager replaced me and some other developers with his friends, it was a cheap company rampant with nepotism especially on certain teams, but it was still a company with hundreds of employees so it was a bit surprising to see that.