Russian staff at Google's European headquarters in Dublin.

Google is reported to be planning to expand its staff by a third, with most of the new hirings in Europe, as the internet search company tries to avoid being seen as an aggressive American multinational, according to the Financial Times.

Google, which has its European headquarters in Dublin, plans to hire several thousand engineers in Europe to create a research and development team in the region as big as the one it has in the US.

The FT says that only 500 of an estimated 7,000 Google engineers are in Europe, but the company has signalled plans to expand the numbers dramatically.

“I aim to grow the EMEA [Europe, Middle East and Africa] engineering team as big as the one in North America. This is why I joined,” Nelson Mattos, Google’s new Vice President Engineering EMEA told the FT.

Google currently employs 13,786 staff and the planned expansion is expected to have a three-year time frame.

An estimated half of Google's employees are understood to be engineers, most of them located at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Google hired its first engineer in Europe three years ago and now has engineering offices in 12 countries across the continent.

Nelson Mattos, Ph.D.

Google is reported to be keen to be seen in a positive light in Europe not as a clichéd conventional American multinational. It also wishes to be seen to be responsive to European concerns on such issues as privacy as well as getting a better pulse of web users in the region's key markets.

In Russia, Google ranks third behind local rivals Yandex and Rambler.

Mattos told the FT that he hoped European engineers would be more culturally sensitive to issues that are important in Europe.

Google first located in Ireland in 2003, with its European headquarters opening in Dublin in October 2004 and it now has about 1,200 employees located here.

Brazilian native Nelson Mattos, Ph.D., was an IBM Distinguished Engineer - - "an elite group of practicing expert technical executives recognized not only for their exceptional engineering and programming in research, development, manufacturing, sales and service, but also for their anticipated significant future contributions to IBM's growth" - - before joining Google this year.

Prior to joining IBM in 1991, Mattos was an associate professor at the University of Kaiserslautern in Germany, where he was involved in research on object-oriented and knowledge base management systems, and received a Ph.D. in computer science. He also holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. Mattos is fluent in four languages, has published over 80 papers on database management and related topics in various magazines and conferences, and is the author of the book, An Approach to Knowledge Base Management.