There is another option.

Employer: Do this vile thing.

Me: No, that would be unethical.

Employer: Oh, you're right, of course. Train Steve instead.

Me: No. <quits>

So you always quit when asked to train someone? The reason Employer plays along in the beginning is so you don't realize Steve will be your replacement until it has already happened.

Besides that, some people will need to continue working as they search for another job, and training Steve could be parlayed into a rudimentary supervisory position on the resume. That helps if you ever intend to jump over to the developer-manager track.

Q: "Have you ever had anyone under you?"

A: "Yes. I was in charge of a trainee once."

Q: "How did that work out?"

A: "Great, until they gave him my old job, then fired me. Maybe we had a budget problem?"

Additionally, if you don't train Steve and instead just quit, that's not going to stop the Employer from asking Steve to do the unethical thing without training. Now the unethical thing is not only unethical, but it is also filled to the brim with bugs that cause unsafe situations for end users.

For what it's worth...

http://time.com/64707/mary-barra-gm-safety/

"The program is formatted to recognize employees who contribute ideas, or those who raise questions about safety issues before they become bigger problems. Call it an internal whistleblower program."

What does this mean in the VW case? I believe the unions are strong in Germany. So either the "rogue engineers" was a lie from the management or they were doing it in their own volition?

don't give up so easy. Think of Fair Trade coffee -- all it takes is a vocal minority to insist on a set of practices and that will come to be considered the norm. The social (and market) pressure of hiring only coders that have taken the "Oath of Shannon" or whatever will enforce the standards far better than any union.

Fair Trade coffee is not an inherently beautiful and good system. It has worthy goals and maybe does more good than bad, but it's hardly a great example.

It’s a metaphor. Nobody was forced to adopt it with any kind of governmental or economic coercion, just a vocal minority that thought it was a good idea to elevate the standards and do more than just buy the cheapest product in the market.

Wouldn’t fly in most European countries with reasonable labor laws, union or not. The company would be in deep shit.

I would say the U.S. has become blase about corporations not having a social benefit component. They can do really vile things, far worse than a human, and get off with a fine that may or may not be meaningful in inhibiting such behavior in the future. I can't think of a single historical case, which I think would be notable, of a state rescinding the articles of incorporation of a company thereby destroying its shareholders - the corporate equivalent of capital punishment.

Some states do have "social benefit" corporations as a thing, where their charter expressly states how they are to benefit society not merely make profit. But no state makes this kind of incorporation mandatory.

VW is a German company. Nissan is Japanese. VW engineers did their unethical thing in Germany. In the context of this story, your comment fails logically.