Yes. Devops people come from a SWE background generally + they understand infra. They usually have 10+ years experience. Most specialties work this way in software: security, devops, AI, ML, ... etc. You need to be a SWE first, then specialize.
Also I work in AI/ML and hardly anybody has 10+ years of SWE experience before specialising. Most people start fresh out of a PhD or postdoc program or come from some sort of math or physics background.
Now it's actually 80:20 due to software engineers becoming frustrated and disillusioned with the current state of things. Not only due to specialization and the push towards tool standardization (you don't get to build many custom components because we k8s all the things so most of the time you're just writing yaml/hcl), but because working with regular sysadmins gets extremely frustrating.
This could be the entire problem. These are specialized fields. They are being treated like they are not.