You can start using Kubernetes with one YAML file and docker image.

If you want to skip devops work of setting up cluster, go K8s managed. All major cloud providers give you that option.

So, you replaced opensource, standard cloud solution such as K8s with proprietary cloud platform by Google. I mean, good for you but for many of us this sounds backwards.

As a bootstrapped founder, going with K8s was the best decision ever: deployment, scaling, custom resources, jobs, cron, etc, all that stuff comes included and it costs writing a YAML file.

Do you have to learn something to use K8s. Yes, like with everything.

Is it difficult? No more difficult than any other solution out there.