I don't know how it is now, but when I graduated my understanding was that as long as your degree was in the general field, you were qualified to review the patent application. So a machine could be reviewed by someone with any engineering degree - industrial, chemical,civil, etc. And my brother's friend - a civil engineer - used to periodically call me to ask me about some coding-related patent. And I - definitely a non-hacker - would always respond "that's just a best practice. anyone who's had a few undergrad programming classes knows that. how can that be patentable". Hopefully, it's changed, but I wouldn't count on it.