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Write the PySpark code to find the second highest salary in each department.

Spark/Big Datamedium0.5 min readPremium
Frequency
Low
Asked at 2 companies
Category
452
questions in Spark/Big Data
Difficulty Split
88E|81M|283H
in this category
Total Bank
1,863
across 7 categories
Asked at these companies
AltimetrikInfosys
Key Concepts Tested
partitionsparksqlwindow
Expert AnswerPremium
90 wordsInterview-ready
**Logic**: Partition by department → order by salary DESC → dense_rank → filter rank=2. **Code**: `from pyspark.sql.window import Window; from pyspark.sql import functions as F; windowSpec = Window.partitionBy("department").orderBy(F.desc("salary")); ranked = df.withColumn("rank", F.dense_rank().over(windowSpec)); result = ranked.filter(F.col("rank") == 2).select("department", "salary")`. **Why DENSE_RANK**: Handles ties (e.g., two #1 salaries) so rank 2 is the true second-highest....
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