IMO leaving salary to late stages leads to a huge waste of time.

I am not going to spend time going to interviews, let alone preparing for them, many rounds over many days, just to discover at the end that their salary range is not a fit. I did that once, never again.

And of course if I'm interviewing, I'm not doing so with just one company, I'm talking to many. So now multiply that time waste by N companies? No thanks.

I confirm salary on the first intro call with the recruiter. If we're not on the same page, I just saved myself many days of what would've been wasted time.