Since computing is mathematical at its core, and since most of the most interesting (in my opinion) problems in computing are heavily mathematical at their core (computational fluid dynamics, numerical relativity), going into computing without basic algebra is roughly akin to an illiterate trying to be a professional writer.

On a more concrete level, it's quite common to have to rearrange equations to preclude overflow errors or loss of precision, to move determine what is an invariant, so it can be moved out of a loop, or because your numerical library is missing something like argsinh.