Is there a way, using the flink operator, that we can create an interactive cluster? Say that we can use the SQL client to submit exploratory jobs?

Not sure if I understand "interactive cluster" correctly, but letting the SQL client connect to the standalone session cluster might help. https://nightlies.apache.org/flink/flink-docs-master/docs/dev/table/sqlclient/#getting-started

Thanks very much - yes, I think the standalone cluster was what I was after