I bet there are corporations that want regulatory stability over political football. If someone could figure out how to tap that with Super PACs they could capture funding. Probably easier to do in local elections where on party or another has failed to put up a candidate for a judge.
I see one party races in Texas for justice of the peace and for judges. The Dems have no viable candidates in some jurisdictions because no one wants a democrat or to be labeled as one. But maybe a centrist could brand themselves as the anti democratic alternative to republicans.
Not an engineer, but the original post doesn’t seem to indicate if these are rank and file engineers or supervisors who are training multiple persons, or persons with the job title who are not expected to do much coding.
Some could be persons who keep running into roadblocks with their managers and have decided to coast while doing a second job.