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Correlated Subquery: Employees Above Department Median
Find employees whose salary is above the median salary in their department. Use a correlated subquery to compute the median (the salary where at least half the department earns less and at least half earns more). Show name, department, salary, and dept_rank (their rank by salary within the department, highest=1). Sort by department, salary DESC. Correlated subqueries for median computation are asked at Google because they test deep understanding of row-level vs aggregate-level thinking.
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Schema
employees
| emp_id | name | department | position | salary | hire_date | manager_id | performance_rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alice Johnson | Engineering | Senior Developer | 95000 | 2019-03-15 | 5 | 4.5 |
| 2 | Bob Smith | Engineering | Developer | 75000 | 2020-06-01 | 1 | 3.8 |
| 3 | Carol Williams | Marketing | Marketing Manager | 85000 | 2018-09-20 | NULL | 4.2 |
Expected output: 95K and 80K employees appear
Hint
Concepts
SELECT Correlated Subquery COUNT WHERE
Practise the topic: SQL practice questions · CTE practice · GROUP BY exercises · Advanced SQL interview questions
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