Boy, I hit a nerve here. My real point was that enjoying flying does not directly translate into enjoying the life of a professional pilot. Since the OP has a degree in Finance, the opportunities for engineers are pretty much a moot point. The idea was to focus on how the OP wants to spend their time. If flying people or cargo to destinations covered by your employer on a routine basis sounds like fun, then by all means become a professional pilot. If you really like seeing something odd on a VFR flight and want to change your route to check it out more closely to fully enjoy flying, then remaining a non-professional PIC and making enough money elsewhere to indulge your passion might be a better option.
On the idea of engineers being able to climb as high as they want on the career ladder and keep doing engineering work, I still have to disagree. I was financially successful, but only because I chose to pursue management opportunities through my career. That choice opened doors closed to folks that wanted to stay closer to the technical side of the work. By the end of my career, I had a difficult time understanding some of the truly technical work I did on 2 phased flow as a young engineer working deep into the mechanics of power plant operations. I finished my career at a very high managerial level, and enjoyed what I was doing, but it certainly wasn't hands-on engineering anymore. Also, the level I wound up working at was near the top of a very pointed hierarchical pyramid. Thousands of working level engineers get winnowed down to 1 or 2 very senior management spots. There is no chance for the average engineer to wind up where I found myself through seniority alone. Lots of other careers provide better advancement opportunities through seniority without requiring the worker to take on additional and different responsibilities. The really good thing about engineering for me was that at the very beginning I had enough discretionary income to keep flying the way I wanted, and even enough assets to buy a series of planes. I imagine the world of finance might provide similar opportunities, particularly if the OP got an MBA. That MBA would likely be far cheaper than getting an ATP and could allow the OP to be making real money in their field while pursuing the advanced credential and while having fun flying. There may be lots of happy professional pilots, but many of them would not call the work itself fun. The OP just has to decide what's really important to them - having fun flying, or being a professional pilot.
