So I just got my results back and I'm officially a Certified Reliability Engineer. Honestly felt like I'd never get here after failing by 11 points the first time. I'm a quality engineer with about six years of experience and I thought I could just wing it with some light reading. Wrong. The depth on failure mode analysis, Weibull distribution, and accelerated life testing absolutely humbled me.
The second time around I gave myself 14 weeks and got serious. I used the ASQ Body of Knowledge as my roadmap, worked through the Reliability Engineering Primer cover to cover, and started doing timed CRE practice test sets every weekend. That last part was the biggest game changer — I could read theory all day but until I was actually under exam pressure I didn't realize how slow I was on the math-heavy reliability calculations.
For anyone mid-prep right now: don't underestimate the statistical sections. I'd budget at least 40% of your study time there. Happy to share my full breakdown if it helps anyone else grinding through this.