>> why are we trying to use language specific packaging tools to build packages rather than just building OS specific packages where dependencies are handled by apt for deb packages or dnf for rpm packages?
>>
>> These are language agnostic and can get the job done.
> Because I have dozens of colleagues, each with their own os/distribution, developing an application that needs to lock down dot releases of dependencies to the versions running in production
I assume that the production environment isn't running dozens of os versions and distributions. For development, using a VM or container running the same os version and distro that's used in production and using that OS's package format for packaging the software and installing it in the dev environment (on the container or VM) would work. You're testing to see if the software works in the production environment, not someone's preferred os/distribution.
> and update them at the same time
I'm not as familiar with apt, but dnf has a version lock feature that would allow you to lock down the dependencies to specific versions. You could update them and test them during development and update the version lock file to pull down the updated version of the dependency when updating production.