Department Highest Salary
A medium-tier problem at 55% community acceptance, tagged with Database. Reported in interviews at Ozon and 2 others.
Department Highest Salary is a medium SQL problem that's hit candidates at Ozon, Tencent, and Tinkoff. The acceptance rate sits at 55%, which tells you most people either nail the join logic or stumble on the window function syntax. This is the kind of problem that feels trivial until you're in the assessment and your GROUP BY clause doesn't do what you expected. It tests whether you actually understand how to aggregate, partition, and rank in SQL, not just whether you can write a query that runs. If you blank on the exact window function approach during your live OA, StealthCoder surfaces a working solution in seconds.
Companies that ask "Department Highest Salary"
Department Highest Salary is the kind of problem that decides whether you pass. StealthCoder reads the problem on screen and surfaces a working solution in under 2 seconds. Invisible to screen share. The proctor sees nothing. Built because the OA filter rejects engineers who'd pass the on-site. That's a broken filter. This is the workaround.
Get StealthCoderThe trap here is thinking GROUP BY alone gets you the answer. You need to find the highest salary per department, then match it back to the employee name and department. Most candidates write a subquery or CTE to get max salary per department, then join it back to the main table. The slicker approach uses window functions like ROW_NUMBER() or RANK() OVER (PARTITION BY department ORDER BY salary DESC) to rank employees within each department and filter for rank 1. The gotcha: if multiple employees tie for the highest salary, RANK() will show all of them while ROW_NUMBER() picks one arbitrarily. The problem statement dictates which behavior you need. This is where the obvious solution breaks and candidates get a wrong-answer verdict. StealthCoder is the hedge if you can't remember the exact window function syntax or which rank function to use under pressure.
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Department Highest Salary recycles across companies for a reason. It's medium-tier, and most candidates blank under the timer. StealthCoder is the hedge: an AI overlay invisible during screen share. It reads the problem and surfaces a working solution in under 2 seconds. Built because the OA filter rejects engineers who'd pass the on-site. That's a broken filter. This is the workaround. Works on HackerRank, CodeSignal, CoderPad, and Karat.
Department Highest Salary interview FAQ
Is this actually asked at FAANG-style companies?+
It's hit Ozon, Tencent, and Tinkoff, so yes, it's real interview material. The 55% acceptance rate suggests it's not a gimme. Most people who see it live either know SQL window functions cold or get stuck on the partition logic.
What's the trick? Is it just GROUP BY?+
No. GROUP BY + MAX(salary) alone doesn't join back to employee names cleanly. You need a subquery or window function to rank employees within their department by salary, then filter for the top rank. That's where the gap opens up.
Do I need to know window functions to solve this?+
Not strictly. A CTE with GROUP BY to find max salary per department, then an INNER JOIN back to employees, works fine. But window functions like ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY) are faster to write and less error-prone under time pressure.
What if two employees have the same highest salary in one department?+
Depends on the problem spec. RANK() returns all tied employees. ROW_NUMBER() picks one arbitrarily. Read the expected output carefully. This detail trips people up in the assessment.
How does this relate to the Database topic?+
This problem tests core SQL skills: joins, aggregation, subqueries, and window functions. If you're weak on window functions, this is a real vulnerability in a database-focused assessment.
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