I think people very often don't know what they want, and at least for data science there is this weird thinking that exists that you are either a data scientist or a developer. When in reality the good data scientists also have good dev skills.
yes, I also applied for a couple of data science jobs, but that field didn't seem promising so I gave up quickly.
I similarly got a whole data science MS (paid for my by employer) but still remain at my developer job. Sort of a combination of the data science field looking a lot less promising than 3-4 years ago when I started the degree & more upward mobility if I don't change fields now.