Because if the company can get away on spending under budget for you, they can either spend more of that fixed number on someone or something else I think the

Because if the company can get away on spending under budget for you, they can either spend more of that fixed number on someone or something else I think the recent trend in hiring software engineers is to pay what they ask, because if you don't (e.g. offering $60k instead of $100k), you're going to have to hire again in 6 months to a year when they leave. Just searching for a software engineer can cost $30-50k in downtime, recruiter's commissions, and learning curves.