Market rate in Amsterdam is pretty low compared to the US salaries you see all over the internet.

According to Glassdoor for example the average salaries for Software Engineer are:

- US: $103k

- NL: €45k

For somebody who's moving halfway across the world anyway, I can imagine they'd prefer to look for a job in the US.

Edit: The comments below are all correct. I didn't mention any of the secondary benefits since the internet hardly ever mentions those. To somebody from a country where things like health insurance and paid sick/vacation days hardly exist, there's a much smaller chance they look into those things.

Also in the US a lot is dependent on employer (health care, vacation days, etc.), whereas in the Netherlands many things are set by law.

My point was that people who look at salaries on the internet and compare those, will often choose the highest and dismiss the lowest.