What I wish I knew when I became CTO
&gt; I’ve found it a real struggle to get our team to adopt writing tests.<p>If you&#x27;re struggling to judge the engineering culture of a company that you&#x27;re considering joining, consider this indicative of a poor one. It isn&#x27;t definitive, but it&#x27;s something you should ask about and probe further. Ask to see their CI dashboard and PR comments over the last few days. When they talk about Agile, ask what _engineering_ techniques (not process!) they leverage. These things will tell you if you&#x27;re joining a GM or a Toyota; a company that sees quality and efficiency as opposing forces, or one that sees them as inseparable.<p>When it comes to tests, there are two types of people: those who know how to write tests, and those who think they&#x27;re inefficient. If I had to guess what happened here, I&#x27;d say: the company had a lack of people who knew how to write effective tests combined with a lack of mentoring.<p>That&#x27;s why you ask to see recent PR comments and find out if they do pair programming. Because these two things are decisive factors in a good engineering culture.