Yes. A user can create and edit projects as long as it has either SysAdmin or ProjectOwner roles from the HWSecurity module. A user with either or both of these roles solely won’t be able to deploy a project.
Only users that additionally have the DeployAdmin role in both environments (this is the source environment where Hubway Builder is installed and the destination environment where the Runtime component is installed) are able to deploy projects successfully. A user with the same username in the destination environment is considered the same user.