My guess would be that they are confusing "enjoyable" with "easy". I find software development enjoyable, but it can be both hard and easy at times. And sometimes hard (problem solving) is what I want to do, other times easy (knocking out code for a solved problem) is what I want instead.

Alternatively, they are just in a role/job that doesn't happen to deal with difficult problems. Which is fine. Sometimes, that's what you want.