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Median Salary Without PERCENTILE
Calculate the median salary across all employees without using a built-in PERCENTILE or MEDIAN function. Show a single value: median_salary. If the count is odd, return the middle value. If even, return the average of the two middle values, rounded to 2 decimals. Google asks this pattern frequently because it tests understanding of row ordering and positional logic.
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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: median_salary: 70000
Hint
Concepts
SELECT Window Functions ROW_NUMBER COUNT Subquery CTE Window Functions + Subquery
Practise the topic: SQL practice questions · Window function practice · GROUP BY exercises · CTE practice · Ranking function practice · Advanced SQL interview questions
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Anthropic · Google · Meta · NVIDIA · Snowflake
A SQL Quest challenge matched to patterns reported for these companies — not a question any of them has published.
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