Working with linear algebra has been one of the most valuable skill-sets to develop as a programmer. It's not relevant to a lot of domains, but for dealing with real or simulated 3D spaces it is like a super-power.
Are there programmers that deal with real or simulated 3D spaces without knowing any linear algebra? How? Euler angles (including gimbal lock) all the way?
Sure, if you're doing it all with a framework that handles all that for you. If you program a game in Unity, you're a "programmer that deals with simulated 3D spaces" and you don't need a lick of math.
I think plenty of programmers go the route of using a tool that does everything for them, to slowly learning the underlying nuts and bolts (math, etc) that allow them to modify the framework itself.
Was working on a 3D game with a programmer who didn't demonstrate knowledge of LA. (Maybe he had it, but he hid it well.) Several times we'd find him multiplying by matrix A and then by matrix A' (or doing multiplications by some random constant and then dividing the result by that same constant to get the sizing correct) because he was in the habit of jiggling things just until they weren't obviously broken.
I always assumed that he was just a one-off, but I suspect this could easily arise from copy/paste and framework usage. (I'm also not sure I think this is universally bad; I think it's great that early teenagers can whip up a Minecraft-ish demo without having to learn all of linear algebra first.)
as SamBam said, there are a ways to touch these domains without linear algebra.
But what I meant is that it feels so powerful to unlock these domains. Once you develop a comfort level it opens up these really cool, magical things you can do with a computer, like graphics, simulation, ML, image processing etc. And the linear algebra skills you learn in one domain are often transferable to other really cool, interesting domains. This is what feels like a super power.
