* The author is the bottom contributor on his team by a large margin. Their few contributions are primarily configuration changes and pixel pushes.
* The author hasn't made any contributions since last August, likely due to a leave of absence
* The author's manager has received overall positive feedback in the yearly employee survey for the last two years
If I were to speculate, I would guess that the author was put on a PIP very early on and, combined with his short tenure, is the reason the transfer was denied. I really hesitate to speculate any farther than that since there are clearly other circumstances to factor in, but I encourage everyone to consider that there are two sides to this story. Personally, given the data I can see, it doesn't look very good for the author.