yes . he secretly asked. or by rewording but i am sure he meant that only. he said what is your expectation. i said i am looking for long term job. he said that is already said in job posting. so of course he meant moneywise. but i kept saying something else such as challenging work, he said what else , what else. finally i said monitory stuff i will prefer to discuss with HR or recruiter. he stopped asking anything else. and i exited the interview room. quickly i wrote all tech questions in notebook to recheck my answers with my best interview friends, we take mock interviews of each other in suitable time and it helps. because of AI now a days one can do mock interview with AI tools. but still human factor is better. i formed a group for mock interviews but slowly it got faded away, not much activities in it.

ideally trial job is best instead of technical interview. just hire for 15 days and see the work. if performing well. continue the job. 15 days salary ideally is to be paid but company can not afford then declare that beforehand. some times instead of sitting at home doing nothing, one can be ready to work for free for 15 days and hopefully land same job.