FAA, right. Trump's pick for FAA head was confirmed only because the majority in the senate (you guess which party) decided to look the other way about allegations that while at Delta, he mistreated a whistleblower who raised safety concerns to him. Oh, and he's a lawyer. I wouldn't trust the current administration's FAA on this. Yes, politics does come into it whether we like it or not.

Yeah there is a push for using more avg pilots.

...but on mission critical testing with billion dollar implications. You want to tell me they're pulling that name out of a hat?

Maybe. I don't know the intricacies of testing flight control software but I imagine Boeing will have a bunch of professional 'test pilots' augmented with regular pilots they 'borrowed'.