It really depends on what kind of company you are negotiating with.  Companies of a certain size will have salary bands and they can&#x27;t pay above a certain amount otherwise they risk salary imbalances within teams.<p>Small startups may be playing with their runway and so need to know where you stand in order to know whether your salary expectations will impact the runway too greatly.<p>You might be able to play this game if you are personally being recruited for something specific and&#x2F;or working with the founder or a senior enough person in a large co who can break you out of the bands.  But otherwise you risk the recruiter simply not qualifying you for consideration.<p><i>(I&#x27;ve hired many, many engineers in my career)</i>