That's part of your professional responsibility. How do you know not to store passwords in plain-text? How do you know that you have to make your software acc

That's part of your professional responsibility. How do you know not to store passwords in plain-text? How do you know that you have to make your software accessible to people with visual impairments? I honestly don't think you need a legal degree to know that "dramatically alter how the pollution controls works when in a test environment" is likely to be extremely dodgy! Now, maybe these programmers did flag this as a problem. And, maybe VW's high-priced lawyers said it was OK. In which case, responsibility is probably shifted. I'm not saying every programmer should be a lawyer. But you can't say "how was I supposed to know that running a red light while drunk is illegal?! I'm just a delivery driver - not a lawyer."