Closest I've seen a web designer come to any sort of fame was Abel Lenz because of this incident, which I still cynically consider clever marketing. The twitterverse cared more about the drama and the ceo than anything else, which seems to be the norm. Nobody I know can name the actual designers of the iphone (nor can I).
- Care about what you do, not what other people think about what you do.
I think people in any and all fields could benefit from his advice.
Back when I was a young automotive engineer at a tier-1 supplier, I had a mentor tell me "always do what's best for the program - no one will ever fault you for that." In the broad sense, what he meant was "do what's best for the car, not what's best for the company you work for, nor the customer(OEM), nor yourself."
That advice has served me well over the years, mostly because it's fully defensible and doesn't participate in the zero-sum game of screwing the customer / screwing the supplier. (I later worked for an OEM.)
There aren't really any famous engineers, anyway. Maybe a few designers are famous within the industry, but that's rare.