I may have cost someone their job, I need some perspective
Not entirely sure if this is the right sub but here we go:
I am an individual contributor in a mixed technical and non-technical team in a larger company. This is my first real job after college, I was one of three internal hires that came in last year, my years-of-experience are basically none. The other two are more senior than me. We also have contractors in our team that bring in more manpower and specialized technical knowledge, all of them are on mid- to senior-level in title. They are fairly new to the team as well and got contracted half a year or so before I joined.
We are currently under time pressure to redo a mid-sized software project and are more or less at crawling speed because of a lot moving targets and technical unknowns.
Last week, I was invited to a semi-formal internal discussion with middle management to assess the needs in terms of our contractors. I was the only one from the day-to-day team to be asked to join that discussion to give my perspective. It was decided that we take the risk under time crunch to rotate out one of our senior contractors because their contribution to the team was dwindling close to zero and they cost a lot.
At that time I didn't exactly realize or know how to process this but I think I effectively cost this person their job engagement at a time where its already hard to find a stable employment situation.
I'm now starting to doubt myself. I'm in a junior position and I do quite a lot on the team but this feels outside my comfort zone. A junior should not have this weight on staffing matters...right?
I'm not even sure it was a wise decision considering our deadlines. I feel like I have inadvertently said too much or was too blunt at points that gave management a reason to do this. Is it correct for me to judge their actual knowledge and skill level?
I also feel a bit uneasy in terms of team dynamics. Why was I the only one who got invited to give my input? It feels like I was a spy reporting on my coworkers.
I was reflecting today on the situation and would love to have some perspective from people who just have more work experience.