A person who welcomes your questions is easier to build something with.

How someone receives a question tells you most of what you need to know about working together. Defensiveness at the small ones predicts what will happen when the stakes are real and the news is bad. A person who is glad to be asked is telling you the project matters more to them than looking correct. That single trait saves more time than talent usually does.

Early on, ask one plain question you would normally hold back and watch the reaction rather than the answer. Ask again a week later. If questions keep being treated as friction, expect the difficult conversation to arrive late rather than early.