If you want to know why Construx Software is one of the best companies to work for in Washington, then consider what it did when the economy crumpled under the dot-com meltdown and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Managers of the small, Bellevue-based software consulting firm had to cut costs or the company would continue to bleed money. They could have shut their doors and left employees out of the decisions. Instead, they chose to share every financial detail and every possible option with employees. And they asked employees to decide how the company would survive: Did they want to take across-the-board salary cuts, or did they want to lay off two to three of their own? All but one employee preferred the salary cuts. So the company followed the employees' lead. Their decision was a pivotal one that revealed the true heart of the company, says CEO and chief software engineer Steve McConnell, who founded Construx in 1996. "They felt like we're all in this together."

The days of struggling to survive are behind Construx. The private company of 16 employees provides software engineering consulting, training, products and custom development work. It is profitable and thinking optimistically about the future. It carries a roster of high-tech and software-intensive clients to back up this kind of thinking, including Amazon.com, Costco, Disney, Apple, Boeing, Google and even the National Security Agency. Dig deeper and you find more about why it's such a good place to work: CEO McConnell is a soft-spoken, sandy-haired and highly logical software guru who listens to his employees; employee satisfaction is a top priority; employees can expect to regularly develop their professional skills and to work flexible hours to balance their personal and professional lives; and, yes, Construx offers, among other workplace amenities, a "kegerator," a white refrigerator with three homebrewed beers on tap (wine is available, too).

Calling McConnell a software guru is no overstatement. In 1998, he was named one of the three most influential people in the software industry - the other two were Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds - by Software Development Magazine. The first two books he wrote on software development practices won the magazine's Jolt Excellence Award. And he is credited with raising the standards by which developers write code, helping to produce sturdier software.

McConnell nurses a perfectionist streak. "My natural tendency is to want to improve everything," he says. He avoids arrogance: "We've come an awful long way," he says, adding that "you can't improve by being defensive and closed to criticism." And he prefers employees to focus on the company, not him: "I'm a pretty low-key guy," he says. Today, he's wearing beige slacks and a light-blue shirt. No tie. He reaches into the bottom drawer of his desk and offers his visitor a Fresca.

Then there is Mark Nygren, the chief operating officer. He is the finance department and the human resources department for this small company. Affable and quick with answers, he points out that his No. 1 job is employee satisfaction; in fact, his compensation package actually lists it first, followed by profit and revenue. For him, looking out for employees amounts to direct, open communication ("Issues don't tend to fester," he says) and knowing what to say and when to say it. For example, when the sales people are running and gunning and closing deals like a fast-break basketball team, Nygren cautions them not to get cocky. When the deals dry up and the sales people get gloomy, Nygren doesn't pile on. "I spend a lot of time worrying about morale," he says.