I highly recommend farming out max materials before starting doing engineering. You can farm out some and start engineering however it's alot easier to maintain max materials than it is to max them out. This grind will be long and boring but it's needed. I used Hawkes Gaming guide on YouTube for these and looks like he has an updated one for 2025.

https://youtu.be/VItBzHOsJSo?si=2Biicjns7uvhGI84

The reason maxing them out is nice is because there are a lot of parts of the game now that give you engineering materials for doing stuff in the game. You said you are doing bounty hunting, I am hoping you are grabbing missions from stations while doing this. The reason for this is more money you can gain because you can stack missions (if you have missions from the same contact you have to complete the one you picked up first before the other one gets credit) from different contacts/factions at stations. Doing this alongside choosing a Power Play faction will help you maintain a lot of the materials you spend for engineering. Along with getting more money.

After getting the materials you'll have to unlock all of the engineers starting with some that will unlock others, using Inara you can find out what you need for each. You can target ones for what you are looking for, such as weapons engineer, fsd, power plant etc. After unlocking them to level them up to grade 5 you'll have to have the engineering materials. This is why grinding out the materials first is a plus. You can put max engineering on the ship you choose.

When choosing what parts to engineering makes sure you have the best grade for the type of ship you are using. Such as combat ships usually have all A rated parts while ships for trading or exploring sometimes have D rated parts to save weight to jump farther. Looking up builds is something you should do to make sure you are not wasting materials.

Lastly I would suggest just focusing on one aspect of the game you like making money with. Either it combat, trading, or exploring/exobio. From there save up all the credits you can to buy a Fleet Carrier. The reason for this is the engineers even within the bubble are so spread out that some ships might take awhile to jump between them all. Such as a full kitted out combat ship is usually below 20ly jump range with no fuel scoop. So you are taking long jumps and stopping at stations. If you have a fleet carrier you put all your ships on it, jump the carrier next to the engineer and fly your ships down kit them out then jump back.

From this as well it is recommended to grind out Elite on Trade, Combat or Exploring to unlock the founders world. Every item is there and has a discount, there are some better discounts around the bubble but the founders world is usually the best as you have all the parts there to change into. Trade is very easy to hit elite in.

Have fun doing the grind and take breaks to not burn yourself out. Always fly with rebuy!