Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is true with all layoffs. If you can't explain your direct role in creating your product/service, you're going to be higher on the chopping block. Sales, marketing, HR, admins, PMs, etc. are usually the first to go because they don't "keep the lights on" and it's hard to measure their impact. While it's true that it's also hard to measure a single engineer's impact, it's scarier to fire someone who may be expens…
Sales does not belong on that list, since their impact is the easiest of all to measure ($$$). Also, top-down layoffs tend to target expensive staff with large paychecks, without accounting for institutional knowledge or intangible value delivered.
Easy to measure isn’t always good. If the org tends to sell $5m per sale person and they try to scale it by hiring it might just fall to $4m per sales person. When things go under the microscope, they’ll want to put that back in balance by reducing heads.