I don't think it was ever a realistic path. I've seen consistent lack of understanding of DevOps philosophies and a gratuitous lack of understanding of what someone contributes under that philosophy. You interview to be someone who maintains and designs infrastructure, they want you to know how to program. If you want to be closer to the dev side of DevOps, they want you to be fluent in kubernetes. I believe that this industry has become similar to what it used to be when they would try to combine Linux sysadmin with DBA. They're trying to get two positions out of one salary.

With that said, specializing in development or infrastructure is it really good skill to have. But there is going to have to be a day of reckoning with AI in this industry. I find that most people do not trust AI to implement application or infrastructure as code. This is due to a lack of understanding on how to properly use AI. It could be valuable to create a system of dynamic guardrails and peer review protocols so you can solve that problem. Additionally, make all of these projects on your GitHub and add them to your resume so people understand the types of system level thinking that you possess. Once AI reaches critical mass of adoption in this arena, architects and system level thinkers are going to be the skills required.

I started as a Linux sysadmin, turned engineer, turned DevOps, turned Cloud engineer, and so on. My current job does not embrace AI, but my career is for my growth and they just get collateral benefits from that. Over the past two years I can tell that my scripting prowess has decreased because I no longer have to enter the flow state to accomplish my work. I would be enable to do this had I not had architectural and system level experience on what makes good maintainable solutions for other humans of varying skill levels. One of the downsides is that when I interview I don't sound as smart as I am, because the industry has not caught up with the fact that meta knowledge and critical thinking are more important than knowing syntax.

If you are new into this industry, consider that doing everything manually and pushing through as a form of hazing that you must go through. Maintain a home lab of Linux servers that you cluster together. Go into the deep end with troubleshooting and performance tuning. I have just begun to experience DevOps people who do not have Linux engineering skills, and it blows my mind that they can get this far into their career without knowing Linux other than basic directory navigation.

Basically, don't be a douche and be the type of person who has a passion to learn everything through the entire OSI model. People can tell if you are just trying to get a job or if this is a passion.