I actually have had the reverse experience.
My company was acquired 18 months ago. We were the smaller company, about 1/4 the size, and as the founder/CTO, I expected the acquiring company to be all over us. I mean, we had a pretty tight operation but there was only so much 16 people could achieve. There were plenty of things we could improve, and I was looking forward to the resources and experience of this bigger company to help us.
Was I in for a shock!
While their software dev practices were OK (certainly no better than ours), what hit me hardest was their secops. It was a nightmare. And these guys service some brand name clients.
As an example, not only was the corporate wifi password memorable - not actually “P455w0rd” but similarly bad - but it was written on a whiteboard in view of the whole office! Service passwords are still stored in clear text in the corporate wiki, and few people understand why this is terrible. It’s like a 90s IT shop, where people used to ask me “why would anyone care about our password?”
Kicking the can down the road is fine for a while, but without strong technical leadership, kicking the can becomes how things get done, and that’s been my experience here.
I’m not long for this place.