If I were you, I'd take the $55K engineering job and fly on your off time over the next year or so. Get your instrument rating locally and build up a couple hundred hours. Buy a IFR capable Cherokee or 172, get the rating and time, and sell it in a year for what you paid for it.

You'll have income, insurance, and work history to put on a future resume. Then if you still want to, quit the engineering job and head off to ATP or whatever place you want to finish the multi and instructor stuff.

This job is really nothing like flying a Cessna around the pattern.

In two years there might not even be a demand for pilots. Everyone back in 2000/01 were just as optimistic as they are now and then 9/11 happened. Age 70, $200 oil, foreign carriers/cabotage, all sound about as ridiculous as the Twin Towers falling on 9/10 or age 65 10 years ago. Leave yourself an out, and that engineering degree probably won't be worth anything in five years without some experience behind it.