A Common Table Expression (CTE) is the result set of a query which exists temporarily and for use only within the context of a larger query. Learn how to write an SQL query to retrieve the latest pay rate and department for employees. This tutorial covers key SQL techniques such as JOIN, GROUP BY, and ORDER BY to efficiently fetch the most recent pay rate data. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced SQL user, this guide will help you optimize your queries and improve database performance.