If they understood their system, odds are they’d realize that horizontal scaling with few, larger services is plenty scalable.
At those large orgs, the individual developer doesn’t matter at all and the EMs will opt for faster release cycles and rely on internal platform teams to manage k8s and things like it.
Of course there are simpler container runtimes, but they have issues with scale, cost, features or transparency of operation. Of course they can be good fit if you're willing to give up one or more of these.
Yes, complex tools tend to be powerful.
But when I say “devs who care about knowing how their code works” I’m also referring to their tools.
K8s isn’t incomprehensible, but it is very complex, especially if you haven’t worked in devops before.
“Devs who care…” I would, assume, would opt for simpler tools.
I know I would.