I STEM'd in EE at a big state school in the top 25 of the ARWU (Shanghai) rankings. My undergrad GPA is only 3.084 because I took an E on my transcript. I was young and stupid and going through some tough times. I got my firm to pay for my MS at a good regional school and pulled a 3.5 while working full-time.

I've spent a little over 14 years with my current firm. I tried to get out 7 years ago, but my engineering skills had decayed from underemployment. After bungling many technical interviews, I got one offer from a startup in the same city as my current firm that I did not take.

I was not good at office politics, so I've had a few incidents that stunted my career progress. Who knew engineers could be so thin-skinned?

Currently I am working overseas in a developing country for my firm. Cheap and easy travel to Europe, Africa, and Asia is nice. Day-to-day life is not nice. I get my apartment and transport to and from work paid for.

With the salary adjustments I get into low 6 figures, but I am only able to save about 60% of that. You see the contract and think you'll make all this money, but HR and the taxman know how to get their pound of flesh.

I am a key cog in the company's current project. The problem is that this situation is really not preparing me for my next career move in my late-30s. Employers tend to treat ex-pat time as a resume gap, so I may eat into my funds quite a bit when I return to the US.

I recognize my current situation is the result of my own bad decisions. If I had made different decisions in my younger days I would be in the US with a much healthier STEM career. If I had gone into finance or legal I would probably be on track to retire early.

However, I also recognize that I am still doing much better than a lot of people, and that I could easily down-and-out if I'd made different decisions when I was younger.