Degree is a certification, not the knowledge. For me it is useful to understand how a computer architecture, operating system, complexity theory, discrete math

Degree is a certification, not the knowledge. For me it is useful to understand how a computer architecture, operating system, complexity theory, discrete math and calculus works. It doesn't give tangible knowledge for the everyday work, but transformed my view so I make different decisions that I would make without these skills. But there are wast amount of quality materials that are accessible for free on these topics, so no, you don't need college degree (whatever it means; Bachelor?) but you need the skill to be a good software engineer / developer.