Nth Highest Salary - Practice Coding Problems

Nth Highest Salary - Problem

Database Medium

Given the Employee table, write a solution to find the nth highest distinct salary.

Key requirements:

Find the nth highest distinct salary (duplicates are treated as one value)
If there are fewer than n distinct salaries, return null
The parameter n will be passed to your function

Table: Employee

Column Name	Type
id	int
salary	int

id is the primary key for this table. Each row contains information about the salary of an employee.

Table Schema

Employee

Column Name	Type	Description
`id` PK	int	Primary key, unique employee identifier
`salary`	int	Employee salary amount

Primary Key: id

Note: Each row represents one employee with their salary

Input & Output

Example 1 — Finding 2nd Highest Salary

Input Table:

id	salary
1	100
2	200
3	300

Output:

getNthHighestSalary(2)
200

💡 Note:

For n = 2, we need the 2nd highest distinct salary. The distinct salaries in descending order are: 300, 200, 100. The 2nd highest is 200.

Example 2 — With Duplicate Salaries

Input Table:

id	salary
1	100
2	200
3	200

Output:

getNthHighestSalary(2)
100

💡 Note:

For n = 2 with duplicate salaries. Distinct salaries in descending order are: 200, 100. The 2nd highest distinct salary is 100.

Example 3 — Insufficient Distinct Salaries

Input Table:

id	salary
1	100

Output:

getNthHighestSalary(2)

💡 Note:

For n = 2 but only 1 distinct salary exists. Since there are fewer than 2 distinct salaries, the function returns null (empty result).

Constraints

1 ≤ Employee.id ≤ 1000
-10^6 ≤ salary ≤ 10^6
1 ≤ n ≤ 1000
All salary values are integers

Visualization

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Understanding the Visualization

Input

Employee table with salaries

Rank

Rank distinct salaries descending

Filter

Select salary with rank = n

Key Takeaway

🎯 Key Insight: Use DENSE_RANK() for nth highest problems to handle duplicate values correctly

Asked in

A Amazon 28 G Google 22 M Microsoft 19 🍎 Apple 15

Use DENSE_RANK() window function with ORDER BY salary DESC to rank distinct salaries, then filter for rank = n. Alternatively, use SELECT DISTINCT with LIMIT OFFSET.

Table Schema

Employee

Column Name	Type	Description
`id` PK	int	Primary key, unique employee identifier
`salary`	int	Employee salary amount

Primary Key: id

Note: Each row represents one employee with their salary

Common Approaches

Approach	Time	Space	Notes
✓ Window Function with DENSE_RANK	O(n log n)	O(n)	Use DENSE_RANK() to rank distinct salaries and filter for the nth position
Subquery with DISTINCT and LIMIT OFFSET	O(n log n)	O(k)	Use DISTINCT, ORDER BY, and LIMIT OFFSET to find the nth distinct salary

Window Function with DENSE_RANK — Algorithm Steps

Step 1: Use DENSE_RANK() OVER (ORDER BY salary DESC) to rank distinct salaries
Step 2: Filter the results where rank equals n
Step 3: Return the salary or null if no match found

Visualization

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Step-by-Step Walkthrough

Sort

Order salaries descending

Rank

Assign dense ranks

Filter

Select rank = N

Code -

solution.c — C

Time & Space Complexity

Time Complexity

⏱️

O(n log n)

Sorting required for ranking operation

⚡ Linearithmic

Space Complexity

O(n)

Window function requires temporary storage for ranking

⚡ Linearithmic Space

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Table Schema

Input & Output

Constraints

Visualization

Related Problems

Table Schema

Common Approaches

Window Function with DENSE_RANK — Algorithm Steps

Visualization

Code -

Time & Space Complexity

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