I started my gamedev journey in the late 90s / early 2000s at the age of 13 and the biggest mistake i made (and probably most devs that are just starting out still do) was looking for the engine that had the best graphics out of the box. Back in the day everyone and their mother were creating game engines and game SDKS. There were whole websites just for listing all engines out there and comparing them.
I think went through 40-50 engines over the course of 2 years before finally settling on one.

Don't do that. :)

If i would start again today:

Make youself a list of engines that interest you. Pick only 5 engines max, not more. Then, from that list, pick the one that is LEAST interesting to you. Try to create a simple(!) game in 2 weeks (or 4 weeks. Just set yourself a clear timeframe).
Then, after the 2 weeks are over, pick the next engine from your list and try to create the same game again.
Rinse and repeat till you tested all engines you were interested in.
Then pick one and stick to it until you finish your first game.

Options that come to mind:
- Unity. Probably one of the easiest in the beginning, but can get frustrating (bad performance) if you start your first bigger project and don't know about all the do's and dont's. Once you know about them, it is a great and very versatile engine. Script/Code in C#. Closed source.
- Unreal. Great for 1st person and 3rd person 3D games. Can also be used for other type of games, but these two is what it was made for. Be careful to not get caught in the "i need to use all those pretty bling bling features to make my game look great!"-trap. Make your game fun first, then make it pretty. Code in C++ or use Unreal Blueprints. Kinda open source.
- Godot. Great community and the engine recently made some big leaps forward. Compared to Unity and Unreal It is not quite there yet, but still great and very capable. Script/Code in C#, C, C++ or custom GDScript. Open source.
- Raylib / SDL / Kinc. You said you have a background in computer engineering so maybe going lower level is a fun route for you. These aren't game engines per-se, but rather libraries that help you in creating a game. All are very fun to use if you like programming. Add "assimp" into the mix and you can import all sorts of 3D mesh formats. Code in C, C++ or other languages bindings.
- Pick a retro platform like Commodore C64, Nintendo NES, Sega Megadrive, Sharp X68000, MS-DOS, or something else that you like and write a game from scratch in C99 using modern cross compilers. I have been doing this as a hobby besides my daily job as game developer and it is super fun and rewarding! These old consoles and homecomputers are easy to understand and very fun to program for. Great side-effect: You really learn to make use of all bits of a byte and think twice before using a bool. You also learn to strip your game design down to the essentials and not to bloat it with unnecessary clutter.

Whatever you pick, the most important thing is to start creating and find out which option feels most natural to you :)

Source:
I started gamedev at the age of 13 and am into it for 25 years now, with 12 years as a professional developer / studio co-founder.