Any idea why the expectation of autonomy for professional programmers seems to be so much lower than for professional novelists?
Programmers have the same option, but most choose a guaranteed paycheck over autonomy.
I think that's true of software as well. When V1.0 of your software has a large install base, lots of things are going to be put into place to make sure 2.0 doesn't cause your customers to run. That decreases autonomy, especially when some of the "management" is really just political nonsense and ladder climbing.
A couple of times, I had managers who were stupendously good programmers. They weren't nervous about programming. They didn't care if we went in there, ripped everything up, and set it right again. Managers who don't code well must feel weird. Their responsible for this fragile thing, but they don't know how it works, or what you're doing to it.