Earning more than your manager
A works council at Nordvik Global asks an awkward question: who is paid more than their own direct manager? Salaries are stored in USD and already converted, so they can be compared directly. Both the employee and the manager must still be at the company (termination_date empty).
Task: return employee, manager, employee_salary, manager_salary and difference (employee minus manager). Keep only rows where the difference is positive. Sort by difference from high to low, then by employee A to Z.
The data you can query
Each table is shown with its column types and the first rows, so you can see exactly what the data looks like.
| dept_id INTEGER | name TEXT |
|---|---|
| 1 | Engineering |
| 2 | Sales |
| 3 | Finance |
| 4 | People & Culture |
| 5 | Marketing |
| 6 | Operations |
Showing the first 6 of 7 rows.
| emp_id INTEGER | name TEXT | dept_id INTEGER | job_title TEXT | country TEXT | grade INTEGER | salary_usd INTEGER | hire_date TEXT | termination_date TEXT | manager_id INTEGER |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Harry Clarke | 7 | Chief Executive Officer | United Kingdom | 9 | 375000 | 2016-03-01 | NULL | NULL |
| 2 | Khalid Al Hashimi | 1 | VP of Engineering | United Arab Emirates | 8 | 237000 | 2021-03-01 | NULL | 1 |
| 3 | Zainab Ahmed | 1 | Director of Engineering 1 | Pakistan | 7 | 59000 | 2021-10-12 | NULL | 2 |
| 4 | Hina Khan | 1 | Engineering Manager | Pakistan | 6 | 40000 | 2024-08-10 | NULL | 3 |
| 5 | Ren Tanaka | 1 | QA Engineer | Japan | 4 | 68000 | 2022-12-19 | NULL | 4 |
| 6 | Piotr Zielinski | 1 | Data Engineer | Poland | 3 | 33000 | 2025-10-23 | NULL | 4 |
Showing the first 6 of 58 rows.
| review_id INTEGER | emp_id INTEGER | review_period TEXT | rating INTEGER | reviewed_on TEXT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 2024-H2 | 2 | 2024-12-20 |
| 2 | 2 | 2025-H1 | 1 | 2025-06-18 |
| 3 | 2 | 2025-H2 | 3 | 2025-12-30 |
| 4 | 2 | 2026-H1 | 2 | 2026-06-25 |
| 5 | 3 | 2024-H2 | 3 | 2024-12-29 |
| 6 | 3 | 2025-H1 | 4 | 2025-06-18 |
Showing the first 6 of 178 rows.
| promo_id INTEGER | emp_id INTEGER | promo_date TEXT | old_grade INTEGER | new_grade INTEGER | old_salary_usd INTEGER | new_salary_usd INTEGER |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 2025-11-26 | 6 | 7 | 50000 | 59000 |
| 2 | 4 | 2025-12-10 | 5 | 6 | 33000 | 40000 |
| 3 | 6 | 2026-05-08 | 2 | 3 | 28000 | 33000 |
| 4 | 7 | 2025-09-14 | 6 | 7 | 120000 | 143000 |
| 5 | 12 | 2025-01-06 | 2 | 3 | 27000 | 29000 |
| 6 | 29 | 2026-02-23 | 6 | 7 | 80000 | 91000 |
Showing the first 6 of 9 rows.
Your query runs on SQLite. Write a single SELECT; use LIMIT instead of TOP.
Need a hint?
A self join: use the employees table twice under different aliases and link manager_id to emp_id.
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