Top N Without Functions | Dataford Interview Questions

How would you write a query to get the top N salaries without using the function keyword, and what performance tuning would you apply?

Assume N = 3. Return all active employees whose salary belongs to one of the three highest distinct active salary levels, including ties. Use the provided employee and department tables.

Output

One row per qualifying employee with employee_id, employee_name, department_name, and salary
Exclude inactive employees, NULL salaries, and employees without a matching department
Sort by salary descending, then employee_id ascending

Schema

employees

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

departments

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

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