Google Inc. has hired the lead engineer behind the Mozilla Firefox Web browser, who is splitting his time between the search company and the open-source project.

Ben Goodger, who helped shepherd the Firefox 1.0 release that has dug into Microsoft Corp.'s browser dominance, joined Google as a full-time employee earlier this month. While Goodger is a full-time Google employee, Google also is donating half of his time back to the Mozilla Foundation, Google spokesman Steve Langdon said.