Engineers always had root on their desktop and laptops.
In most orgs, you'll see Windows and the sysadmins and devs will have LOCAL\administrator, but not LOCAL\SYSTEM. That's usually because developing software(debuggers) or using sysadmin tools is a admin-only thing.
As for me, I do prefer Linux on the desktop proper, with appropriate sudo access for root access. But again, I also do want SELinux on as enforcing, and fapolicyd enabled with good setup. If it's a laptop, I definitely want clevis and tang for enforcing attested and encrypted drives. If my shit is stolen, I dont want to be the vector where everything is stolen.
I've only been at one such place. At Google the desktops mostly run Linux, and you pretty much only get another option if you're actually working on stuff that needs it.