I think parent would wish for something close to what heroku represented (what would it be ?)

K8s is easier at smaller scales (I understand k3s as a packaged version ?), but you still need one or two people in your team to properly understands all of the concepts and inner workings of k8s, and be able to neck deep into if/when shit hits the fan.

For a small team that's a lot of commitment for something that is usually not their bread and butter and wish they could build once and only slightly tweak every year or so.