Unfortunately, I haven't seen any in this style that don't require soldering.

Looks like a lumberjack. I have one as well and got my kit from https://keebd.com/en-us/products/lumberjack-5x12-ortholinear-keyboard-kit. The middle is microcontroller and associated circuitry for the keyboard. It's exposed for aesthetic purposes (a lot of people like the look of through hole electronics) and is covered by an acrylic plate that comes in the kit.

Great board! No matter what else I try, the Corne is the board that I always come back to.

I could see that, I wouldn't be able to use esc in that position either, though, I prefer escape left of A in place of capslock. That said, I took a look at the kit and it appears that the microcontroller goes in that position, though I suppose they could have put the microcontroller on the right so that all the keys in that row could be moved over to the left.

You put them on a second layer, probably under q through p.