SQL: Third Highest Salary | Dataford Interview Questions

Brillio's compensation analytics team needs to identify employees at the third-highest distinct salary among active employees. Write a PostgreSQL query that returns every employee tied at that salary and includes the department name when available.

Requirements

Consider only active employees with non-NULL salaries.
Rank distinct salary levels from highest to lowest and select the third level, not merely the third row.
Return all employees tied at that salary with their employee ID, name, salary, and department name. Preserve qualifying employees even when their department is missing.

Schema

employees

Column	Type	Description
employee_idPK	INT	Unique employee identifier
employee_name	VARCHAR(100)	Employee full name
department_id	INT	Referenced department identifier
salary	NUMERIC(12,2)	Annual employee salary
is_active	BOOLEAN	Whether the employee is currently active

departments

Column	Type	Description
department_idPK	INT	Unique department identifier
department_name	VARCHAR(100)	Brillio department name

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