All I have to contribute is that I agree. As someone trying to hire engineers, I genuinely don't understand how companies can get away with such paltry offers.

Probably the most ludicrous to me is Buffer's ridiculously low pay: https://open.bufferapp.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buff...

I'm offering a minimum of $125k with significant equity in a well-positioned company, but I rarely see good engineers interviewing. Yet somehow these other companies are building engineering teams for way less.

Ultimately, I think it comes to developers way over-valuing hype. Appearing on Hacker News regularly, or showing up in Techcrunch a lot, or getting funded by YC, can apparently provide an automatic $50k bonus on all salaries you offer.