Can a company make an offer outside its stated range? E.g. What if Microsoft has a job opening with a range of $110k - $170k, and the candidate they selected used to make $180k and would like $200k? Will Microsoft offer him or her the 200k they seek or offer 170k and lose their candidate? If salary ranges can be bypassed, then they are not really useful, and if they can't, by law, companies could skirt the law by off…
They can also negotiate seniority/level. So if they really wanted that person, and they were originally planning on hiring as a Level N Engineer, they could negotiate to hire at a Level N+1 engineer that has the desired salary.