> why would such a "rogue engineer" take such a risk for someone else?It's well documented that people will often defer to authority, even if it's to do something they feel uneasy about [0]
Indeed, in my own experience as a younger engineer I had a manager sitting over my shoulder once dictating what I should but into an estimate, under my name. Indeed it was fairly innocuous stuff, and I'm sure he meant well, but still ...
In a business environment where you have all sorts of contractors, graduates, people floating through and a management culture of "getting things done" there are so many ways that this kind of thing can happen.
[0] https://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html