I don’t think that I have a great deal to add to this thread.
I completed my training whilst holding down a full time job – also as a Software Engineer. I completed my PPL and hour building at the weekends. I did my groundschool in the evenings after work and used my annual holidays to complete the brush ups and the CAA exams. The CPL and the IR were completed using unpaid leave, although not in the same year and I used annual holiday to complete my MCC. I am soon about to start an FI course. The plan is to do three weeks full time, using this years leave and complete the course at the weekends.
There are a couple of notes of caution that I would sound –
Completing your groundschool in your spare time whilst having a reasonably demanding career will effectively rob you of ‘having a life’ and is a potential relationship killer. It took me two years to do the groundschool, putting in about 4 hours work a night. I basically came in, ate my tea, studied and went to bed. I do not know if there is a Mr Wannabe in your life but living like that is tough. With hindsight I could have done much less work and got through as the brush ups are fantastic – I am one of life’s ‘over preparers’ unfortunately.
Using all of your annual holiday to complete training each year will not endear you to a partner who is less than thrilled about you working every waking hour of the day as you won’t get to take time off together.
Completing the training this way is very longwinded and this is not really what airlines want to see. It took me several years to achieve the final objective. Although the handful of contacts I built along the way have all found airline jobs apart from one (who has already posted on this thread) I would not put money on me doing the same.
I think that you are underestimating the cost of completing this training. There is a longstanding notion within these forums that a modular course costs £35,000 and an integrated course costs £70,000. I have maintained a spreadsheet that records all of my flying and training expenses since my very first PPL lesson (don’t ask why, I think it is the same gene that makes me an ‘over-preparer’) Right now my modular course is topping out at around the cost of your integrated, although that includes all of the flying that I have done (not technically all training) and also the cost of my unpaid leave. I dread to think what the ‘real’ cost of an integrated course is.
If I had my time over, was single and had the money available I would have gone integrated in a heartbeat. Unfortunately it is just not a practical proposition for most of us. If you do elect to stay in full time work and go modular you just have to approach it like you would climbing a mountain – just keep taking one step at a time and eventually you will get to the top.