Where Spring is an "everything but the kitchen sink" framework, Dropwizard is just a collection of best-in-class libraries that are easily swapped out if you prefer something else.
I don't get to do so often professionally, but if given my choice of tools ill generally opt for a combination of Dropwizard in Kotlin.
Spring boot feels like it was from a room full of people where there's a guy in the corner with a form of tourettes that makes him keep yelling "Spring! Take the Spring option!"
It just isn't always the best option and sure, you can often switch out for something else but that defeats the point of an opinionated collection of the best available choices.
And if they don't qualify as "experienced Java guys" then I don't know who can, short of Gosling.
You should add the Jackson Kotlin module so you can pass Kotlin data objects around: https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson-module-kotlin
This combination has made me as productive as I've ever been.
This is nice because it makes it easier to treat your servers like disposable cattle when (almost) all of your configuration and dependencies live in your easily deployed Jar.