I agree with you mostly, but to add my own take: I've seen the cutoff for more desirable engineering jobs being 3.5, which is also basically the cutoff for com

I agree with you mostly, but to add my own take: I've seen the cutoff for more desirable engineering jobs being 3.5, which is also basically the cutoff for competitive grad schools. The real distinguishing factor at that point is what kind of lab work / extracurricular projects you've produced, and it's a lot harder to hide behind a group then.