I'm sympathetic, in that I can easily see a situation where they were given constraints that kind of forced this. Still more than a little eye opening to see it actually built.
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Some hotel collapses? Do you blame the engineer who was rushed because they needed to open to begin making payments on the debt? If the engineer refused, they would have found someone else.
Some part of a car is difficult to fix? They needed to get 35mpg + have enough trunk space to fit a stroller.
When I see these stories, there is always a finger to point, but I don't think these are black and white. There are customers, governments, and financial considerations at play.
Engineers are held to high standards of safety over their works. In Canada they can opt to swear an oath, similar to the Hyppocratic, that they recognize the moral weight of their career on other's wellbeing. In most developed countries there are specific licenses that imply added judgmental weight on their work; simply having an engineering degree isn't even enough to legally call oneself an "engineer" in some jurisdictions.
I'm not saying the bosses aren't equally guilty, but the footsoldiers who chose to carry out those "illegal" orders are, in this case, very specifically trained and warned to not do so.