Google: You too could win millions in stock

Google is once again dangling incentives before engineers.

Google's Chrome browser earned its developers millions in stock bonuses.

(Credit: Google)

The company threw open its doors Monday to the engineering community Monday, announcing that it granted a Founders' Prize--"a multimillion-dollar stock bonus"--to the team that developed Google Chrome. "(The) future is shaped by small teams of creative people who want to make a difference. We're on the hunt for these kind of people -- let us know if you think you're one of them," wrote Alan Eustace, senior vice president for engineering and research at Google.

Google is still one of Silicon Valley's most generous companies in terms of employee perks, but Google's hiring slowed over the past year as the recession took hold and the company scaled back some of those famous extras. Google even was forced to cut employees in March, and has also suffered as a number of high-profile employees decided to seek (or expand) their fortunes elsewhere.

But CEO Eric Schmidt is ready to let the good times roll once again, announcing earlier in the year that Google was set to expand hiring and acquisitions, and backing up that confidence on Google's most recent earnings conference call.

Google also announced that Chrome now has 30 million active users. The browser trails market leaders Internet Explorer and Firefox by a wide margin, but it's growing faster than the competition.