There was a time, and not too long ago, when Google was the underdog, and everyone cheered for it. Then it became huge, the dominant force in online search, andsuddenly it was a bad guy, gobbling up other companies and finding legal difficulties over data retention. It became another big, bad American company. And now it’s trying to change thatimage, at least in Europe. Google has announced plans to drastically increase the number of engineers it employs in Europe. Currently the company has around 7,000 engineers in total, with only 500 ofthose in Europe. Under new plans, the company wants to have about as many engineers in Europe as it does in the US, to create a cohesive European presence and not be seen as an outsider. Nelson Mattos, newly appointed as the head of engineering in Europe for Google, told the Financial Times, “I aim to grow the EMEA [Europe, MiddleEast and Africa] engineering team as big as the one in North America. This is why I joined.” According to a report in that newspaper, the European expansion is likely to be rapid, overthe next three years, which is a lot faster than Google’s American growth. Whether Google really can change its image in Europe remains to be seen, of course. But considering thatit’s only had an engineering presence there for three years and already has offices in 12 European countries, it probably won’t be for want of trying.
