Top 3 salaries per department

DENSE_RANK + PARTITION BY inside a subquery — then filter

SQL drill • Window functions

Table employees(department, employee, salary). Return department, employee, and salary for everyone in the top three salary tiers within each department: rank by salary descending with DENSE_RANK() OVER (PARTITION BY department ORDER BY salary DESC), then keep rows where rank ≤ 3. Use the derived-table pattern: inner query adds rank, outer query selects columns and filters.
Standard SQL does not let you reference the window alias in the same SELECT level as WHERE — so nest the ranked result, then filter. Ties share a rank; with DENSE_RANK, rank 3 can still include many rows if many people tie at the third tier.

Pattern
Inner rank → AS ranked → WHERE ≤ 3

Step 0/8Line —

Rank inside subquery → filter outside

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Inner query: add rank per department. Outer query: pick columns and keep rank ≤ 3.

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Check expects a nested SELECT, dense_rank(, partition by, order by desc, and where with <= 3 (alias may differ).

══ Subquery + filter ══

① Inner: DENSE_RANK() OVER (PARTITION BY department ORDER BY salary DESC) AS rank

② Close inner: ) AS ranked

③ Outer: SELECT department, employee, salary … WHERE rank <= 3

YOUR QUERY

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