This may sound negative but I discourage people who want to become engineers, thinking it's some 'back-door' or 'fast-track' to superior hiring chances as a commercial pilot down the road.
I know of several exceptions, those routes are dead with the death of the FE position. Had one who had started flying in his teens under PanAm's bennie to get his private and built up about 700 hrs on their dime and afterwards recreationally on his dime. Took a 747f flight mech gig, networked his way into a FE position while continuing to build flight time and using that FE time toward his ATP minimums. First ATP gig was right seat on a 742F. The whole time he was probably earning as much if not more than that FO seat paid over the years.