I think I fucked it up in here. I'm 23, doing Computer Engineering in Brazil, the university is well enough and no debt due to being a federal public uni, but I'm not feeling that well about this career. This is supposed to be a bridge between EE and CS right? I really don't want to be pigeon holed into pure programming or embedded roles...

Looking at this place and the archives of /trv/, it feels like there is no easy path for normal easy-going career pathways to travel, I don't know, some sort of job in Finance? or Pilot? Aerospace Engineer?

Not to mention the taxes in this country. God damn it, you can incorporate and work as a consultant. That lets you accumulate capital on the corporate side of the tax barrier so to speak. But the tax authorities can show up at any time, claim that your one man company is “overcapitalized” and force you to pay income taxes on your earnings.