Comment by yeahboats

Have you looked into the various builds on r/ergomechkeyboards? A lot of custom layouts/pcbs, most all with hotswap switches and running QMK, which should let you keep your custom keys on device and not needing any software at runtime. (You'll have to program the firmware at some point though.) I went with one that had a build service as I didn't feel comfortable soldering just yet. Only downside is that cases can be a little unrefined and it's easy to get expensive quickly as they are more niche builds.