I am primarily a system administrator (among other roles) and have been looking to make the jump into DevOps for a while. The main issue seems to be that almost no company hires for entry-level or intermediate DevOps positions, only senior with 5+ years experience of very specific tools. My guess is most of those get filled internally as lateral moves from regular developer roles.

Some do hire entry level DevOps! There's a big demand for it, from where I'm standing.

Those roles indeed get filled internally by devs, but it's tough since I don't think most devs want them. :p

Go for consulting/body shops, they're always hungry for people they can pay as juniors while they're sold as seniors.

that's still sysadmin

Yes, but 'modernized' with generally higher salaries.

But also suboptimal work life balance.