DONT keep your head down though. That's part of the problem. Get out of your bubble/headspace/etc and talk to other devs. Compare approaches. Reach out to others to see how they're solving problems. Even problems you're not having. Especially those actually, for when the time inevitably comes when you have to deal with those issues.

As a new person you can't possibly know everything. If you dont have someone showing you the ropes then you have to take initiative and talk to others.

Especially in larger orgs, this is invaluable.

It really seems they isolated him and / or he's working solo on a project. Dangerous place to be in a mismanaged org.

Agreed. No reason to panic. Your experience is not at all unusual. The further up the management hierarchy you go the more results oriented they become. At a certain level of management profit & loss, delivering faster at less cost become the focus of attention. Your immediate manager might be coping some flak from his manager. But that is not for you to be concerned about.

Simply continue to produce good work. Learn from the more senior devs and remain respectfully accepting of comments from your manager's manager and anybody further up. Remembering that they do not have sufficiently detailed knowledge about what you do but they like to think that they do. Being diplomatic means that you never debate with them. If they make any substantial suggestions, discuss them with your immediate manager and ask them for advice on how to proceed.

>Your manager should of deflected this sort of stuff

Also keep in mind that there is a good chance the manager might have had OPs back in all this, maybe it's just the managers boss who has unreasonable expectations (maybe due to poor communication from the manager about changing requirements etc).

Unlikely because she left him alone

Be slightly wary of taking advice from people that use 'of', instead of 'have'.

Or, take the opportunity to teach them the real phrase and explain that because of people's verbal speech patterns it confuses younger generations...

Pedantic Comment