Thanks for bringing this up! Just to be clear, RStudio Server can run as root inside the container, but run as an "un-privileged container," so that the pod itself does not run as root.
Could you offer a bit more clarification about whether this is permissible in your infrastructure? Is your requirement that the pod itself cannot run as root, or that the process inside the container cannot run as root?
If you are looking to integrate RStudio Server with Kubernetes, you might be interested in exploring the Job Launcher, which is designed for integration into orchestration tools like Kubernetes and has shipped Kubernetes as its first "plugin."
https://blog.rstudio.com/2018/11/05/rstudio-rsp-1.2-features/
Note that this supports batch tasks through the "Launcher Jobs" feature, as well.
https://blog.rstudio.com/2019/03/14/rstudio-1-2-jobs/
If you would be interested in a demo, feel free to reach out to our customer success team at sales@rstudio.com .