Top Three Payroll Runs | Dataford Interview Questions

Write a query to identify the top three highest-paying payroll runs for each business category in a given month at Gusto.

Use May 2024 for the sample data and include completed payroll runs only. Exclude runs whose business has no category.

Output

One row per qualifying payroll run with business_category, payroll_run_id, business_id, payroll_date, total_gross_pay, and payroll_rank.
Include at most three runs per category, with ties broken by the lower payroll_run_id.
Order by business_category, then payroll_rank.

businesses

Column	Type	Description
business_idPK	INT	Unique identifier for a business
business_name	VARCHAR(150)	Business name
business_category	VARCHAR(80)	Business category used to partition payroll runs

payroll_runs

Column	Type	Description
payroll_run_idPK	INT	Unique identifier for a payroll run
business_id	INT	Business associated with the payroll run
payroll_date	DATE	Date of the payroll run
total_gross_pay	NUMERIC(12,2)	Total gross payroll amount
status	VARCHAR(20)	Payroll run status

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