Managers with at Least 5 Direct Reports - Problem

You are given a table Employee that contains information about employees, their departments, and their managers.

Each row represents an employee with their unique id, name, department, and the managerId of their direct manager. If managerId is NULL, the employee has no manager.

Task: Write a SQL query to find managers who have at least 5 direct reports.

Return the result in any order containing the names of these managers.

Table Schema

Employee
Column Name Type Description
id PK int Primary key - unique employee ID
name varchar Employee's full name
department varchar Department where employee works
managerId int ID of the employee's direct manager (NULL if no manager)
Primary Key: id
Note: No employee will be the manager of themselves. managerId references another employee's id.

Input & Output

Example 1 — Manager with Exactly 5 Reports
Input Table:
id name department managerId
101 John A
102 Dan A 101
103 Brad A 101
104 George A 101
105 Kyle A 101
106 Lisa A 101
Output:
name
John
💡 Note:

John (id=101) has exactly 5 direct reports: Dan, Brad, George, Kyle, and Lisa all have managerId=101. Since this meets our criteria of at least 5 direct reports, John is included in the result.
Example 2 — Multiple Managers with Different Report Counts
Input Table:
id name department managerId
101 Alice Engineering
102 Bob Engineering
103 Charlie Engineering 101
104 David Engineering 101
105 Eve Marketing 102
106 Frank Marketing 102
Output:
name
💡 Note:

Alice has 2 direct reports (Charlie, David), and Bob has 2 direct reports (Eve, Frank). Neither manager has at least 5 direct reports, so the result is empty.
Example 3 — Manager with More Than 5 Reports
Input Table:
id name department managerId
201 Sarah Sales
202 Tom Sales 201
203 Jerry Sales 201
204 Mary Sales 201
205 Peter Sales 201
206 Anna Sales 201
207 Mike Sales 201
208 Linda Sales 201
Output:
name
Sarah
💡 Note:

Sarah (id=201) has 7 direct reports: Tom, Jerry, Mary, Peter, Anna, Mike, and Linda. Since 7 ≥ 5, Sarah qualifies as a manager with at least 5 direct reports.

Constraints

  • 1 ≤ Employee.id ≤ 500
  • 1 ≤ Employee.name.length ≤ 20
  • 1 ≤ Employee.department.length ≤ 15
  • All employee id values are unique
  • managerId is NULL or references a valid employee id

Visualization

Tap to expand
Finding Managers with At Least 5 Direct ReportsInput: Employee TableidnamemanagerId101JohnNULL102Dan101103Brad101104George101105Kyle101106Lisa101GROUP BY managerIdCOUNT(*) >= 5Output: Qualifying ManagersnameJohnManager 101 (John) has 5 direct reports: Dan, Brad, George, Kyle, LisaCOUNT(*) = 5 which satisfies >= 5 condition
Understanding the Visualization
1
Input Table
Employee data with manager relationships
2
GROUP BY + COUNT
Group by managerId and count direct reports
3
Filter + JOIN
HAVING COUNT >= 5 and get manager names
Key Takeaway
🎯 Key Insight: Use GROUP BY with aggregate functions to count relationships and HAVING to filter aggregated results

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