This sounds like an internal political game between your boss and the skip level and has really nothing to do with your performance.
The non-asshole way of your skip-level to ensure a critical project gets delivered in time is to discuss the deadlines and priorities with your boss and KEEP HANDS OFF THE TECHNICAL DETAILS! Then your boss should break it down to milestones, answer your technical questions, and keep politely bugging you if they believe you are going to miss the deadline.
If the skip-level is not happy with the progress, they should express it to your boss, and the boss should get back with some compromises (hiring more people, simplifying requirements). The golden rule of management is that all praise should be public, and all criticism should be private and candid.
Setting up a meeting with 2 bosses and 1 employee where the skip-level is blowing steam at the employee, forcing the employee to point fingers to the boss is a sign of GROSS managerial incompetence. Skip-level looking through technical decisions (rather than user-impacting perf metrics) is another sign of GROSS incompetence. Having 2 managers and 1 junior programmer work on a feature is yet another red flag.
The key takeaway is that your skip-level is either an incompetent asshole blowing steam off, or trying to get rid of your boss, using this as an excuse. You can find out by checking their previous history (how long they worked together, who hired whom, how big is the company, whos idea was the project) and asking some questions (suggest adding some features to the project to both bosses in separate conversations, and ask about their overall project opinion in between).
If the skip-level is trying to kick out your boss, they may keep you nonetheless, or may try to kick you both off the boat. Your boss may also want to scapegoat you to keep their job (and it may work if the company is shitty). If the skip-level is just an emotional asshole, your boss should give you some hints about not taking it too seriously, so then it's up to you on how much shit you want to put up with.
Either way, most software companies these days are an absurd theater fueled by gossip and human emotion, while the actual product is secondary. You need to either account for it and be cynical, or just ignore that part and be ready to sometimes get fired or blamed without any reasonable explanation.
The non-asshole way of your skip-level to ensure a critical project gets delivered in time is to discuss the deadlines and priorities with your boss and KEEP HANDS OFF THE TECHNICAL DETAILS! Then your boss should break it down to milestones, answer your technical questions, and keep politely bugging you if they believe you are going to miss the deadline.
If the skip-level is not happy with the progress, they should express it to your boss, and the boss should get back with some compromises (hiring more people, simplifying requirements). The golden rule of management is that all praise should be public, and all criticism should be private and candid.
Setting up a meeting with 2 bosses and 1 employee where the skip-level is blowing steam at the employee, forcing the employee to point fingers to the boss is a sign of GROSS managerial incompetence. Skip-level looking through technical decisions (rather than user-impacting perf metrics) is another sign of GROSS incompetence. Having 2 managers and 1 junior programmer work on a feature is yet another red flag.
The key takeaway is that your skip-level is either an incompetent asshole blowing steam off, or trying to get rid of your boss, using this as an excuse. You can find out by checking their previous history (how long they worked together, who hired whom, how big is the company, whos idea was the project) and asking some questions (suggest adding some features to the project to both bosses in separate conversations, and ask about their overall project opinion in between).
If the skip-level is trying to kick out your boss, they may keep you nonetheless, or may try to kick you both off the boat. Your boss may also want to scapegoat you to keep their job (and it may work if the company is shitty). If the skip-level is just an emotional asshole, your boss should give you some hints about not taking it too seriously, so then it's up to you on how much shit you want to put up with.
Either way, most software companies these days are an absurd theater fueled by gossip and human emotion, while the actual product is secondary. You need to either account for it and be cynical, or just ignore that part and be ready to sometimes get fired or blamed without any reasonable explanation.