[vpalanc1]

His advice flies in the face of every negotiation course/book. Yes, you must know the range they are willing to pay; but once you know... you don't wait for them to make an offer, you ask something at the high end of what they're willing to offer, possibly above (but close enough to) the higher margin(* ).

The one who first names the price forms the baseline of negotiation. Say their range is 100-140k. If you say, "tell me what you would pay" and they say 100K, you're screwed, no way you can say "150k" from there and still be taken seriously. If OTOH you say 150k at the start and are lucky enough to get the answer "no way we can give you more than 140k", from there it's a simple job of asking for an extra concession that you know they can make ("Hmm... ok, say I could accept 140k, but only if the company allows me to WFH when I need to")

( *) Of course, not from the start. He's right about that. They need to be invested in the hiring - if they already spent a lot of effort trying to assess your skill before making an offer, you're in a much better position to ask a lot. Presuming that they like you, of course.