ICT,
That is encouraging to hear that we are doing more than stress and design over the water; the aviation circle is a small world. I did have the opportunity to work as an FTO, but as a frozen ATPL holder the FTO position in my own circumstance was realistically never going to allow me to progress to be a test pilot (hardly surprising); I was better off returning to my original specialisation as a contaractor in order to fund further ratings on the commercial flying side.
Anyway back to the point, as you suggest ICT there are fantastic opportunites out there to work as an FTE, but for our young friend after advice here if he doesn't go down the military route then he will at some stage in my opinion need to choose between FTO or Commercial Pilot, it is a slim chance (near but not impossible) to combine the two.