Do you have some statistics for this? Also, most of the inflationary damage was done in the last 3 years.
Unless 10 years ago you started at a very low salary I don’t think they’ve gone up significantly after inflation. If you were already a senior engineer 10 years ago for example.
Use BLS. Compensation for the average employee profile of "Software Developer" has far exceeded inflation.
I can't remember the exact timeframe, but roughly 2016 - 2022, salary for the profile of Developer has gone from ~$86k to ~$130k mean. I think that beats inflation quite significantly.
Ok, so that fits with what I'm noticing among my peers. The lower and middle salary range of developers is continuing to increase, but not a lot ($86k in 2016 is equivalent to $110k now), whereas the high end is not increasing very much or is losing to inflation slightly (people who were already earning $150-200k or more base salary in 2016, the start of the reference range you mentioned).
Unless 10 years ago you started at a very low salary I don’t think they’ve gone up significantly after inflation. If you were already a senior engineer 10 years ago for example.