Write a query to retrieve employees whose salary is greater than 50,000, sorted by salary in descending order.

To retrieve employees with a salary above 50,000 and order them by salary descending, you can use a simple SELECT statement with a WHERE clause and ORDER BY. For example:

SELECT employee_id,
       first_name,
       last_name,
       salary
FROM   employees
WHERE  salary > 50000
ORDER BY salary DESC;

Explanation:

• SELECT lists the columns you want to return.
• FROM employees specifies the table.
• WHERE salary > 50000 filters rows to only those with a salary greater than 50,000.
• ORDER BY salary DESC sorts the result set from highest to lowest salary.

If you also need to include the employee’s department, you could join the departments table:

SELECT e.employee_id,
       e.first_name,
       e.last_name,
       e.salary,
       d.department_name
FROM   employees e
JOIN   departments d ON e.department_id = d.department_id
WHERE  e.salary > 50000
ORDER BY e.salary DESC;

This query demonstrates basic filtering, sorting, and joining, which are core skills for any SQL developer.