Salary ranges are more useful in aggregate than one at a time

One posted salary range is one data point, shaped by that company's specific banding, level definitions, and how aggressively legal made them round the numbers. Read alone, it's hard to know whether it's generous, average, or lowballing.

Save five or six postings for comparable roles and the range across all of them starts to mean something — where the low end clusters, how wide the spread gets for senior versus mid-level titles, which companies are consistently above or below the pack.

Range width is itself informative. A posting with a narrow band ($145K–$155K) usually means the level and scope are already locked in before the req even opens. A wide band ($140K–$210K, a real example range this common) usually means the company is leveling the hire based on the candidate — worth knowing before you anchor your own number in a conversation.

Location and remote policy skew the aggregate too, so it's worth eyeballing whether the postings you're comparing are actually apples to apples — a Seattle-and-remote mix will naturally show a wider spread than five postings all based in one city.

That's a big part of why RoleScan surfaces a rolled-up salary range across everything you've saved instead of just showing each job's number in isolation — the aggregate is the more honest picture.