Perhaps if you wrote software in addition to doing that which is strictly assigned to you your question would answer itself. This isn't rocket science.
But there is creativity. You don't have to go an extra mile though, but you can. My response is to this:
> If you aren't independently finding new problems to solve then you will be a weaker programmer than somebody who is constantly stepping up their game.
> If you aren't independently finding new problems to solve then you will be a weaker programmer than somebody who is constantly stepping up their game.