This exactly matches my own experience. I work in University IT as a developer in the central IT department, but I started off in one of those "shadow IT" grou

This exactly matches my own experience. I work in University IT as a developer in the central IT department, but I started off in one of those "shadow IT" groups. There are little islands of technologists embedded with grad students who continue to make many things run on shoestring budgets and with minimal oversight from IT professionals. I've seen things change in recent years, though. The central IT department is gradually gaining traction in some of these places. That isn't a panacea, of course, because we have our own issues. But I do think overall the availability of senior IT staff and programmers is a huge boon for these small teams who are starting from little to no experience in the field.