There are builds for Android TV lineage os for the raspberry pi. If you are willing to put in some work for alternative apps it's a great interface with no Google integration. I've used kodi before i moved to jellyfin always found the kodi -> jellyfin integration to be clunky. Google TV would be much cleaner
My old palm pre was amazing webos ui was way ahead of its time, super customizable, independent from google, Facebook and everyone elae, all in a sleek package with a physical keyboard. It had many other issues but it took android a few years to catch up so their UI wasn't as clunky.
If you don't have the touch bar then it's a different generation. Do your research or try it out. You should be able to boot a live USB at minimum. Trying not to discourage you but give you some realistic expectations.
I have a 2016 mac with a touch bar and I've been dual booting Linux mint. Wifi, sound and the touch bar do not work, at least out of the box. May not be a good first time Linux experience if things don't just work well. Just giving you fore warning I would maintain a dual boot til you find something stable.
Alternatively Dells and thinkpads are well supported with Linux, they may not have the specs that the mac has but everything works and can be gotten used on Amazon for a couple hundred dollars.
Google apple agreed to increase android security for the deployment of RCS to both platforms. This directly looked like enforcing root detection and safety net(now play integrity) enforcement to use RCS. I'm speculating restricting side loading is also part of that agreement. It would make sense considering it's forbidden on apple.
A few years ago with ARM arriving at the data centers I envisioned there would be a day that density would go up and new data centers would be less in demand. I'm either too early or wrong.
Honestly pair programming I feel works better with more similar abilities than far off. Also give em a task to let them struggle a bit in the beginning of the sprint.
There are builds for Android TV lineage os for the raspberry pi. If you are willing to put in some work for alternative apps it's a great interface with no Google integration. I've used kodi before i moved to jellyfin always found the kodi -> jellyfin integration to be clunky. Google TV would be much cleaner