i got excited until i saw this was kubernetes. you most certainly do not need to add that layer of complexity.
If I can serve 3 million users / month on a $40/month VPS with just Coolify, Postgres, Nginx, Django Gunicorn without Redis, RabbitMQ why should I use Kubernetes?
You shouldn't, but people have started to view Kubernetes as a deployment tool. Kubernetes makes sense when you start having bare metal workers, or high number of services (micro-services). You need to have a pretty dynamic workload for Kubernetes to result in any cost saving on the operations side. There might be a cost saving if it's easier to deploy your services, but I don't see that being greater than the cost of maintaining and debugging a broken Kubernetes cluster in most case.
The majority of uses does not require Kubernetes. The majority of users who think they NEED Kubernetes are wrong. That's not to say that you shouldn't use it, if you believe you get some benefit, it's just not your cheapest option.
We must have very different definitions of senior engineer from the GP, because I’d put the monthly cost of a senior engineer closer to $30k than $3k, even on a log scale.
Employing people requires insurance, buildings, hardware, support, licenses, etc. There are lower cost locations, but I can’t think of a single market on earth where there is a supply of senior engineers that cost $3k/month. And I say this being familiar with costs in India, China, Poland, Spain, Mexico, Costa Rica, and at least a dozen other regions.
Log scale is just going to distort the picture in favor of your argument nor against it (10 is closer to 3 than to 30, but in log scale 10 becomes closer to 30) so I don't really understand why you're adding that here.
Also having hired senior software engineers in Europe (France, Germany, Nederlands), if it cost you 30k a month in India or Poland, you're just being conned. “Hardware, support and license” are just bogus argument, as it's completely negligible unless you're doing exotic stuff requiring expensive licenses for your engineer. “Insurance” costs pretty much nothing in most of Europe because health insurance is mostly covered by the state, and “buildings” is mostly a self-inflicted wounds nowadays, especially since you'd get the better candidates if you supported full working from home.
The original 3k is indeed way too low, even for a junior developer, but 30k is equally ridiculous really as you should never really spend more than half of that outside of the US.
If I can serve 3 million users / month on a $40/month VPS with just Coolify, Postgres, Nginx, Django Gunicorn without Redis, RabbitMQ why should I use Kubernetes?