There is definitely a stereotype that software engineers are nerds with glasses who are really good at math. I can say from my experience working with software engineers for over 10 years that some are and some aren't and therefore being really good at math isn't a requirement. However, a lot of concepts and principles are based on a basic understanding of mathematics. So while you don't need a PhD in mathematics, the more math you know, the more you can accomplish in software engineering.

Let's start by looking at ways you can be a software engineer and not have an advanced degree in mathematics. For the average front-end or mobile developer who spends most of their time translating design mocks into code, the most advanced mathematics you'll encounter is adding and subtracting to figure out how much padding you need around a container or maybe division to figure out the width of 4 boxes in a carousel. And if you're lucky, your designer will give you all these measurement and you can just input them into the code. And with that, you won't have to worry about calculus or differential equations.

And on the flip side of things, there are roles that require an advanced understanding of mathematics. Data and Machine Learning (ML) engineers typically have a strong background in mathematics (and probably enjoy mathematics). For data engineers, you're looking at large data sets and figuring out different mathematics models to apply to identify key information. This could be something simple like what is the average of all the values or it could be more advanced like clustering certain values to determine if there's a statistical variance for a particular group. ML engineers are constantly looking at data models and adjusting variables to improve the accuracy of the models. This is how Google can "guess" what you're searching for before you finish typing your search. Advanced mathematics will help you understand how basic ML models are implemented and how make more advanced models.

This covers two ends of the spectrum in terms of understanding mathematics. There's a big space in the middle where you can be an intermediate math nerd. But like we stated in the beginning, more math is always helpful but not a hard requirement.