I'd consider knowing how to use the API to configure services and deploy new services to be a good definition of "working knowledge". You're right that everyone

I'd consider knowing how to use the API to configure services and deploy new services to be a good definition of "working knowledge". You're right that everyone doesn't need to know the ins and outs of everything for sure, but if you observe at your company that everyone is relying on "the Kubernetes guy" to do everything related to Kubernetes, you've just re-invented an old-school ops team in an especially brittle way.