I'm having trouble finding much information on this guy's role in what happened, but what I can find makes it sound like he played a big part in making the decision to create the cheating software. He's an "engineer" but was with VW for decades and was in a leadership role when this stuff went down.
Obviously he still has a boss, but I doubt the boss outright told him to cheat. Smart companies don't break the law that way. They just give their people goals that can't be met legally, while wink wink telling them that legal compliance is important, and let them figure out how to reconcile it.