For the average developer, it's okay not to interact with these tools. All you need to interact is with the `bin/deploy-production` script the above-average developer built.
And I'd argue that with managed kubernetes solution, such as GKE Autopilot, you get roughly the same "DX", and much more flexibility to use whatever tools you fancy. GKE Autopilot manages the cluster and node availability, ingress and certificates, all you need to do is write the kubernetes yaml. As long as what you are working on fits in a docker container, you're good to go. And you're fairly good to move off of their setup, because those same yaml configs will work on AWS or self-hosted solutions, albeit with additions that fill in gaps where Google managed services lived.
And I'd argue that with managed kubernetes solution, such as GKE Autopilot, you get roughly the same "DX", and much more flexibility to use whatever tools you fancy. GKE Autopilot manages the cluster and node availability, ingress and certificates, all you need to do is write the kubernetes yaml. As long as what you are working on fits in a docker container, you're good to go. And you're fairly good to move off of their setup, because those same yaml configs will work on AWS or self-hosted solutions, albeit with additions that fill in gaps where Google managed services lived.