To paraphrase Phil Greenspan’s famous LISP quote: “Does any sufficiently complicated micro service architecture contain an ad hoc, informally specified, bug ridden, slow implementation of half of kubernetes?” Thought that might be an interesting way of saying is it worth bitting the bullet and spending the effort to understand and use kubernetes.
It’s wonderful software but it is expensive as hell to hire people for. You may be better off hiring junior and sending them for CKA/CKAD certifications.