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.