This is more of a procedural mistake than a specific technical (Kubernetes/GKE) mistake, even if the tech stack is the root cause. This is a capacity planning

This is more of a procedural mistake than a specific technical (Kubernetes/GKE) mistake, even if the tech stack is the root cause. This is a capacity planning or "right-sizing" problem. In prod you just don't go and flip completely your layout (100 1vCPU servers vs 1 100vCPU server or whatever) an more so in a stack you are not yet expert on, you change a bit and then measure. Actually you try to figure this out first in a dev environment if possible.