Right, most companies just want you cranking out the code their marketing department has determined as necessary, they don’t care if you grow, prosper, are happy, or any of those things.
Innovating is all of those, and many managers will be open to cool new ideas and let you try stuff out if there's real promise. You might need to only spend a fraction of your time on it, or do it after hours. The problem is that many developers have bad ideas, or they can't market those ideas effectively. Remember that they will be able to claim a part of any success you find.
