I strongly disagree. Rolling out a K8s cluster to a production environment without knowing how to "do it by hand", relying instead on helper tools that abstract

I strongly disagree. Rolling out a K8s cluster to a production environment without knowing how to "do it by hand", relying instead on helper tools that abstract away the complexity, is deeply irresponsible, even professionally negligent. Like learning shortcuts in math, you only "earn" automation once you've done things the hard way often enough to know how it works at a low level. That knowledge is critical. Otherwise you're just cargo-culting something you don't understand.