boffin

Reader's Digest ２月号の記事Sir World Wide WebはWWWを創り出したSir Tim Berners-Leeについての記事で、その冒頭を引用します。
OVER LONG YEARS, it took innumerable people to develop the internet, which for decades was used only by professional boffins and highly skilled geeks - not you and I. But the world wide web (WWW), created for the internet in 1989-90 by one man, Tim Berners-Lee, changed everything.
"geek" はオタク、特にコンピュータ関係のオタクの意味で使われるのは知っていますが、"boffin" は初めて見る単語です。ここでは恐らく技術者とか専門家を示している様です。辞書で確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: informal , chiefly British: A person engaged in scientific or technical research: a computer boffin
・Cambridge English Dictionary: In groundbreaking research Leeds University boffins discovered that men relax in pubs. a scientist who is considered to know a lot about science and not to be interested in other things: a technical/computer boffin.
主にイギリスで使われる英語ですね。それで今まで見た事がなかったのでしょう。
Wikipediaに "geeks" との関係の説明がありました。
A boffin is British slang for a scientist, engineer, or other person engaged in technical or scientific work. The original World War II conception of war-winning researchers means that the term tends to have more positive connotations than related terms like egghead, nerd, or geek.