Sure! Looks like you aren't an American, which explains the disconnect. According to Glassdoor, senior engineers typically earn twice as much in Seattle than London. That's not including the value of stock options that would come from being at a successful startup, which could easily be 10x a person's annual salary on IPO or acquisition, although that is more difficult to generalize. Obviously your individual situation may be totally different. Point being, Yank developers are not usually desperate to form unions.