Employees Earning More Than Their Managers

LeetCode 181 | Difficulty: Easy

Easy

Problem Description

Table: Employee

+-------------+---------+
| Column Name | Type    |
+-------------+---------+
| id          | int     |
| name        | varchar |
| salary      | int     |
| managerId   | int     |
+-------------+---------+
id is the primary key (column with unique values) for this table.
Each row of this table indicates the ID of an employee, their name, salary, and the ID of their manager.

Write a solution to find the employees who earn more than their managers.

Return the result table in any order.

The result format is in the following example.

Example 1:

Input: 
Employee table:
+----+-------+--------+-----------+
| id | name  | salary | managerId |
+----+-------+--------+-----------+
| 1  | Joe   | 70000  | 3         |
| 2  | Henry | 80000  | 4         |
| 3  | Sam   | 60000  | Null      |
| 4  | Max   | 90000  | Null      |
+----+-------+--------+-----------+
Output: 
+----------+
| Employee |
+----------+
| Joe      |
+----------+
Explanation: Joe is the only employee who earns more than his manager.

Topics: Database

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Approach

Direct Approach

This problem can typically be solved with straightforward iteration or simple data structure usage. Focus on correctness first, then optimize.

When to use

Basic problems that test fundamental programming skills.

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Solutions

Solution 1: MS SQL (Best: 600 ms)

Metric	Value
Runtime	600 ms
Memory	N/A
Date	2018-04-12

Solution

/* Write your T-SQL query statement below */

select E1.Name AS Employee
FROM EMPLOYEE E1
LEFT JOIN EMPLOYEE E2 
ON E1.ManagerId = E2.Id WHERE E2.Salary < E1.Salary

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Complexity Analysis

Approach	Time	Space
Solution	$O(n)$	$O(1) to O(n)$

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Interview Tips

Key Points

• Start by clarifying edge cases: empty input, single element, all duplicates.