It's interesting that you say that, because I had the same queasy reaction to your suggestion about engineers. I'm not one myself, but I envision an engineer as someone who sees problems and wants to design elaborate if clever solutions to them. Good idea when you're building a dam, but not when you're making laws.
An entrepreneur, OTOH, knows the costs of grand government plans built on the "evolving needs of society" and all that nonsense, and views them therefore with the skepticism they deserve.
I grant that Bill Gates, who has long since gone native, would be a poor choice.
What you are describing there is a bureaucrat, not an engineer. An engineer is someone who designs elaborate but clever solutions to a problem within specified fiscal constraints.
I'm a civil engineer by trade, and I can solve just about any problem you put in front of me in my area of expertise. It's not that hard, really. The VERY hard part of it is solving the problem in a practical, effective manner.
It's interesting that you should mention a dam, though. When you design a dam, you can't fake anything. It's either going to function properly, or it's not -- and that's exactly the kind of refreshing approach we could use in law. Nobody in his right mind is going to design a dam that falls apart within 6 months, and cite "international law" as an excuse to override well-grounded engineering principles in the design of a dam.