[thinkingemote]

Yep 100% As a small business I sometimes feel like I would like to pay for day or two of someone to allow me to pick their brain, rather than them doing it all instead of me. My way of learning is asking stupid questions so that I get answers which fill in the gaps so I get a good foundation of knowledge. If I ask a targeted question I get fishing rod and line but miss out the wider more crucial stuff about angling. Asking stupid questions is usually a bit embarrassing though, and is inappropriate in irc/stack/discord / help forums.

I have tried our local dev ops meeting, but they seem to be mostly composed of people in full time positions in large companies, or if they are freelancers they are in the wrong tech stack.

One could go to the monthly freelance thread on HN and see if there are any freelance dev ops folks for hire with the appropriate technology knowledge you/we need.