Hmm, yes and no… When I was building engines, math of course was at the very core for shaders, matrix calculations, setting up quaternion references, vector references, VBO, Lighting… But even then, I built a math library and just referenced it for various calculations. I didn’t try and do the base calculations every time I decided I wanted something to happen. The math core (base confusing calcs) was a need to know once basis and forget about it from there on out.!
Most of this is abstracted in a pre-made engine, sure there is no escaping the fundamentals… You need to know what linear interpolation does, you need to know how to manipulate quaternions and you should understand how transforms / vectors / bool’s / int’s / floats / doubles yada yada yada works. But you don’t exactly have to be a math geek or really deeply know most of it…