The developer lifestyle can be a solitary one, especially if you work remotely or are the only developer on a small team. The good news is that as developer jobs continue to rise, there are more resources than ever before available to both novice and expert developers alike.

At Stack Overflow, we’re a big fan of developer surveys. Developers win when they have open access to data about technology usage, development practices, and what employers pay. This is why we were so excited when GitHub released the results of their Open Source Survey, which looked at open source software development practices and communities.

When developers are deciding between job offers, they’ll weigh factors such as salary, growth potential, and work benefits. One important benefit for developers on the cusp of starting families will be the opportunity to take paid parental leave.

Here at Stack Overflow, we’re interested in using our data to share insights about the worldwide software development community. This recent post on the distribution of mobile developers is a good example: it explored traffic to Android questions from around the world, and found that Android tended to be visited more from lower-income countries than from higher-income ones.

Like choosing a college major, making the choice about what kind of developer you want to be—and, subsequently, which skills will best equip you to succeed on that career path—isn’t always easy or straightforward. Web or mobile, frontend or backend, Android or iOS. In an effort to help you make those choices better informed, here are a few things any aspiring developer should know about programming with Swift.