Interview Guides
Window functions come up often in analytics and reporting, especially when you need to order rows within a result set without collapsing the data. In pharmaceutical analytics, this is common when ranking sites, products, or trial metrics in systems such as Eli Lilly clinical reporting workflows.
You are asked to explain the difference between RANK(), DENSE_RANK(), and ROW_NUMBER() in SQL. Describe how each function handles ties, what output each would produce on the same ordered dataset, and when you would choose one over the others.
Keep the explanation practical and interview-ready. The interviewer expects you to cover tie behavior, ordering requirements, and a simple example showing why the three functions return different results even when used over the same ORDER BY clause.
