The point made to me was that a devops role can be made to eventually automate their own job away to an extent. To an investor, having a devops role on staff is acceptable.

If you never had a devops role and used AWS managed services, you can’t automate that and trim costs.

I.e., devops roles look like surplus in the system if they’re doing a worse job than managed services but to certain audiences, that surplus is necessary. So, if you’re looking to fundraise and your business has tight margins, don’t be too hasty to move to managed services.