In general I think matching your tools to your needs, and coming up with solutions that are as simple as possible (but not simpler) is a super power and hard to get right. Your goal should always be to maximize your leverage by hiding and offloading as much complexity as you can while still meeting your requirements.
From a developer point of view, one should not have a mental model in play for Kubernetes, the standard 12 factor pattern should be it. If not, the infrastructure and the app are strongly coupled