The interview was scheduled by a recruitment agency (Already shared my current CTC and Expected, NP, etc.) and went through 3-4 rounds (Even one round was taken by Senior Manager, Architect, and CTO together) within a week, and expectation was set to be IC + Lead role. I was informed I did well and I was through and was asked for documents and shared my expectation as well and from their response, it seems my expectation was in their range. To my utter disbelief, I received a call the next day from HR saying ,I am in a higher payscale and they can max go for 10% of hike not beyond that. My only advice to this company: If you have a budget, that's quite understandable, but nobody is in his sane mind won't accept an offer with a raise of 10%. But at least you should be well aware of your own budget range before scheduling something. If you can't afford somebody then don't waste their time and don't schedule anything. If somebody is getting higher CTC that means he is highly skilled as well and everything comes with a price. The interview is a cumbersome process and you might have time to this farce and even your CTO might have too, but people who are seriously looking for changes might not have. So value their time and energy Advice to interviewees: Guys! pls, ask them how much they can afford and make sure you do a double/triple check before going ahead with the interview process. At least you won't get scammed like me.