It has not been my experience that for at least 95% of developers their needing to exhibit "spontaneous creativity and improvisation" to a degree greater than what a contractor might do while planning how to run a water line, is a good sign. As in construction or home repair or whatever, it's more likely that it means the person doesn't know the right way to do it.

The fact that we often have to do semi-creative things is more a sign that our industry is immature and shitty, than that the work is inherently much more creative than construction work. We keep trying to make spherical houses even though it'd be a hell of a lot cheaper, faster, and in many ways better, to just make ordinary ones. Then we pat ourselves on the back when we "creatively" figure out how to fit parts and furniture designed for normal-ass buildings into the curved-walled rooms of our spherical ones. Meanwhile the customer just wanted a fucking house and didn't care what shape it was.