You do realize that in those other Western countries developers make far less than in the US? Even in the richer Western European countries like Germany, France, Netherlands, Sweden, etc, $50-$90k is pretty typical for 5yr+ experienced software engineers. Yes, that's total, not base, and before taxes which are higher than in the US.

Maybe the best data for that discussion is here: http://stackoverflow.com/research/developer-survey-2016#work...

Jobs in the US pays the most, but not by a very large margin. Even less if measured in buying power. People in the US also prioritizes salary higher than people in western Europe, say.

Most of western Europe is around 60k, vs 110k for US. I'd call that a large margin.

For that margin, they tend to have a better work/life balance, no student loans, and healthcare that doesn't disappear if they lose their jobs.

Depends, my base is higher than that range, and there are other benefits to working in the UK - stronger employment laws, free health service, excellent public transport that sees real investment ... and of course the holidays.

Just looking at salary is comparing apples to oranges.

You get health care as part of your compensation, cars are very cheap, and public transit is decent enough in SF and NYC. If you work somewhere like apple, you get 2 weeks + 3 weeks of 'mandatory' vacation (thanksgiving & 2 weeks of christmas), and other larger tech companies offer generous parental leave.

On top of that, you get paid double or triple. If your sick, you just say, 'i'm sick' and either WFH if it's minor and you don't want to infect the office. Or not work at all if it's major enough

I'm not just looking at salary, I'm saying that the perks that phillc73 was asking for (4-5 weeks annual leave, sick leave, parental leave) do not come cheap.

4-5 weeks + sick leave is mandantory in all countries of EU actually (even in countries of Eastern Europe)

Not sure what the point of your reply is. I know lots of the EU perks are mandated. That's one of the things that makes Europeans have less take home pay than Americans (hence my comment "do not come cheap"). No value judgement here, US and western Europe are all democracies so these are the manifest choices of their citizens.

Even so, at that salary you can still live very comfortably - even in London with that salary you wouldn't really be struggling (assuming you aren't the sole provider for your family).

I imagine it's the same in the US outside of SV and NYC.

But do you adjust for cost of living when you're comparing salaries between countries? Rent and COL in Berlin isn't rent in SV/SF/NY.

I must say... 50-90k seems like a huge range. The top part of the range is almost 2x as much as the bottom part.

Considering these people are supposed to have all the same experience level, I'm surprised why there's such variation.

I wrote 5yr+, not 5yr, so no, they're not supposed to have all the same experience level. But in Western Europe (outside of some hot pockets like London, Switzerland, Luxembourg and maybe Oslo), 6 figure salaries are very rare in software, even for very experienced devs. I'm talking about the richer Europeans here (Germany, France, Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Finland), Southern and Eastern Europe are much lower still. And this is before 40% income tax and 20% VAT (sales tax on consumer goods).

I'm not arguing here that USA rules EU sucks cuz $$$. I get that Europeans get more social benefits and free time. I was just responding to phillc73, who was arguing for more of the Euro perks, that those perks are not cheap.

My guess is that he/she is describing a range across countries in Europe, which vary considerably in income for developers. If that's the case, it sounds reasonable to me.

Also, they described 5+ years experience, not the same experience level.

Perhaps I should have answered in more detail.

The question was, as I interpreted it, what could early hirees be offered, besides share options, to entice them to join a company?

My answer was along the lines of what would entice me.

I've played the share option game, and did reasonably well at the time, but my last two years at the company was just "resting and vesting." I have no attraction to that again.

So, what would be required to attract me to US startup with no goal of going public? A decent salary, 4-5 weeks annual leave, sick leave and parental leave. This would really just put me on a par with my current European employment situation, but it is the minimum I would require in this scenario.

That sounds great! That should happen regardless.

Put another way what does the investor gain putting money in a company that stays private?

Dividends or getting their stake bought out.

Pretty common for companies that never raised VC but did raise outside funding (and thus doesn't have a fund liquidation deadline).

A family friend's parents have held a significant stake in a privately held company, where they've been paid a dividend for 20+ years.

That is a good question.

2-3 weeks leave plus 2 weeks of holidays throughout the year plus sick time plus flexible schedule isn't that uncommon in tech. Maybe not in the earliest stage startups (although flexibility matters more than absolute hours for both employee and employee, in a lot of cases, if you enjoy what you're doing), but in Series C+ companies.

But... the whole point of compensating with stock is that they don't have the funding to pay more....

You can say "well they shouldn't hire people they cant afford" but that's not very realistic. When you start a company in your garage everyone is making sacrifices b/c they think they'll cash out later.

Most salaries don't even come close to the total comp package of a public company (after RSUs/options/etc). I'm talking maybe 1/2.

In other words, just what you'd think a fair compensation package would look like.