No one at Cisco is ever safe unless they are experts at politics.
The not-so-hidden goal is to eliminate older expensive engineers... However, they cannot do this directly without suffering from discrimination lawsuits - so they have to balance the scales by eliminating people under the age of 40 at the same time. From their point of view this is a win-win is it eliminates both expensive engineers and opens up easy to fill positions to meet there stated turnover goals.
LR list might be computer generated but there seems to be at least one pass for directors to save a handful of their pets. I've yet to see a director that values performance over politics, at least in CCBU.
On point post from @YHcWadW-1mly.