unrelated but when hiring managers reach out to you like this do you still have to interview? also what's your yoe if you wouldn't mind me asking?

interviews are inevitable. But sometimes the amount of interviews are reduced. You may have to go through less rounds.

Staff Engineer

Software Engineer

It was a performance based layoffs. Folks who were not meeting expectations were asked to leave

and you believe that? These decisions are sometimes taken to reduce the cost of the team/orgs. They fire high earner or senior folks and back fill the positions with people on low wages or junior positions. 
  
 And even if it was true, stamping someone a bad performer is bad for their career. They already got enough backlash for this.

I have many friends working there, they confirmed that it was indeed a performance based layoff.

Didn’t they go through a major layoff recently.