Google's engineering genius is every bit a child-like character.

Google Taiwan, boasting the biggest Android team outside the United States, hopes to change people's lives through the free, open source mobile communications platform. The gleam in the young engineer's eyes and fervent expression on his face resemble those of a three year-old gazing longingly at the cookie jar on the kitchen counter.

Android and the cookie both represent an existential objective that cannot be cast aside.

"What I do can impact the entire world," says Google senior engineer Andy Cheng, responsible for the Android Market dedicated developers' platform, which allows tens of thousands of software developers in 131 countries across the globe to sell Android software applications through Android Market.

Android Market currently sells 250,000 software applications, already half that of Apple's App Store. Cheng is Google Taiwan's eighth engineer.

Cheng, 32, like the three year-old clamoring for a cookie, has a "sense of urgency" when it comes to attaining objectives: come hell or high water the goal must be met or it will be the end of the world as he knows it.

"If I screw up, Google worldwide won't have anything to use!" he exclaims wide-eyed.

Adhering to an internal yearning and that sense of urgency, the Google Taiwan Android Group, with an average age of less than 30, has set a hard goal for itself: Create mobile services that the entire world loves to use.

In just two short years, this group of young engineers has developed the Android photography and photo album functions and Internet telephone.

Five years ago, Google Taiwan's objective was nothing less than bringing American services to Taiwan so that Google's technology and corporate culture could take root here.

Now, the current of innovation has reversed course. Taiwan's 50-plus strong R&D team works on the development of totally new Google services.

"Before the end of the fifth year, our team was able to take ownership in the realm of the Chrome operating system and Android to make Google Taiwan into a major stronghold for Google," Google Taiwan President Chien Lee-feng says with pride.

Innumerable geniuses have created the Google legend.

A Genius Who Never Came in First

But the banality and extraordinariness of this genius have combined to be the driving force behind his success today.

The most distinct childhood memory of Google Taiwan engineer No. 008, Andy Cheng, aside from buying a book called "Fun With Learning Computer Memory," was watching his father high up on a ladder repairing clients' air conditioners and passing up the screwdriver when needed. His dad would be dripping in sweat, some of which dripped down onto Cheng.

At 16, Cheng flew off to Canada to study, his first ever trip abroad. As soon as the landing gear touched the tarmac, he regretting going.

For a couple operating a small, 33-square-meter electrical appliance shop off Taipei's Tunhua North Road, the NT$500,000 annual tuition was no small burden.

Far off on the other side of the Pacific, Cheng would call home once a week. Calling home at midnight, Taiwan time, Cheng would often catch his father still delivering a television to Danshui or some other location.

He was not a perennial number one.

Prior to heading to Canada, he scored just 28 in junior high English classes. He graduated 10th in his department from Queen's University's Department of Computer Engineering.

When interviewing for the job with Google, Cheng recalls, Chien Lee-Feng asked him: "What have you ever been first in?" Cheng scratched his head, unable to answer.

But at a company stacked with hotshots like Google, Cheng, as always, found his place.

"I'm here, what do I do now?" he asked Chien with trepidation.

"I don't know, you'll come up with the answer yourself," Chien shot back.

Google has never assigned tasks to its employees, trusting instead that they can find meaningful work to perform on their own and set their own objectives. Cheng took to this level of trust like a fish to water.

The directionally challenged Cheng was determined to make the Taiwan version of Google Maps just as useful as the U.S version and not allow Taiwan to become the forgotten island of Google's most popular mobile phone service.

When he made his Google Maps resolution, Cheng had just turned 30. For Cheng and that inner child reaching for the cookie, this was no minor feat that could be so easily achieved.

Having never before performed any mapping services, Cheng first need to get a handle on what geographical information would be needed and into what kind of format it should be organized. During route planning he hit a bottleneck and fired off an e-mail seeking help from Google USA engineers.

Cheng found the time difference an impediment to communication so he reserved a plane ticket and walked into Chien's office to tell him he was off to the U.S.

In the cause of developing this service, Cheng traveled to Tokyo, Beijing, Seattle, San Francisco and New York over the space of two years repeatedly seeking advice from fellow engineers.

Now, before Cheng's father sets out to deliver an air conditioner, he first plots out his route on the Google Maps service his son developed and uses the Google Street View service to take a look at the exterior of the building before deciding which model air conditioner would be most appropriate.

Cheng's mother also puts the platform her son developed to use, downloading the "Angry Birds" game to play for relaxation.

Thinking back to five years ago when he went in for his Google interview trembling with fear, Cheng laughs and says entering the Google offices was itself the toughest thing he ever did.

"But I had to give it a shot," he says. "Only if you had beaten me down would I have accepted that it was simply not in the cards for me to work for Google."

The fundamental belief of Google engineers crowned with the "genius cap" is a belief in themselves. It's really a simple idea, but one that confers great power.

Translated from the Chinese by Brian Kennedy