Data analyst/data science fresher with no experience should I just start applying to software developer roles too?

I've been trying to break into data analyst and data science roles for a while now. Stats background, a few ML projects, some NLP work. On paper it looks okay. In practice, almost every "entry level" data science job wants 2+ years of experience. It's a weird situation.

So I started thinking should I also apply to software developer or SDLC roles? Not because I want to abandon data, but because I need a job, and the data market right now is slow for freshers.

The thing is, I don't know what gaps I actually need to fill. My Python is decent, SQL is solid, I've built a RAG chatbot, an NER system, an LSTM/GRU stock prediction model. But most SWE job descriptions want things like REST APIs, Docker, CI/CD stuff I haven't really touched properly.

A few things I'm trying to figure out:

1. Is it worth pivoting (even partially) toward SWE roles, or does that dilute my profile more than it helps?
2. What small but real projects should I add to my resume that would make sense for software developer adjacent roles without completely abandoning the data angle?
3. Is there a middle ground like data engineering, ML engineering, or AI/LLM engineering that's actually hiring freshers in India right now?

I'm not looking to become a pure backend dev. I just don't want to keep applying only to "Data Analyst" roles and get nowhere for another 6 months.

Has anyone been in this position? What actually worked?