I'm in favor of punishing the people in charge, but I'm reluctant to overlook rank-in-file just because they were just following orders. It feels hypocritical, as an engineer, for me to say that engineers should be recognized not just for raw technical experience but for their ability to be creative artists and humane leaders, and then argue that senior engineers and their ideas and work have no agency or worldly responsibility beyond a requirements document.

According to the OP:

> Federal prosecutor Mark Chutkow countered that Liang was a "pivotal figure" in designing the systems used to make Volkswagen diesels appear to comply with U.S. pollution standards, when instead they could emit up to 40 times the allowed levels of smog-forming compounds in normal driving.

This wasn't just someone who wrote some code that he didn't intend to be misused. This is someone who used his expertise to direct the implementation of an unlawful system. To be successful in that, it seems you'd have to have a decent understanding of the law that you intend to break.