Senior Virologist, DeepMind

About the role

As a part of the Responsible Development and Innovation team (ReDI) at DeepMind, you will be a virologist with extensive wet lab experience, focused on biology evaluations and mitigations of large language models (LLMs).

In this role, you will develop and maintain evaluations that enable decision-makers to ensure model releases are safe and responsible, along with the infrastructure that supports them.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop and execute biology evaluations to test the safety of AI models.
• Drive the development and delivery of harm frameworks and mitigation strategies.
• Communicate results to relevant teams and decision-makers.
• Collaborate with experts in various fields of science, AI ethics, policy and safety.

Requirements

• PhD in virology or equivalent practical experience.
• 2 years of postdoctoral or clinical experience spanning pathogenic viruses, bacteria, or agriculture.
• 2 years of experience applying biosecurity principles to evaluate the intersection of microbiology and AI safety, including Large Language Model (LLM) risk assessments.
• Experience identifying and documenting misuse scenarios for emerging technologies.
• Experience delivering technical presentations or reports, and translating data for cross-functional stakeholders.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience in clinical wet lab virology and working in BSL-2 labs (or higher).
• Experience in using command line tools and coding.
• Knowledge of the issues with Dual Use Biology.
• Knowledge of issues of biological weapons, potential mitigations and awareness of relevant stakeholders.
• Understanding of Safety Frameworks in AI. Knowledge of the Biological Weapons Convention.
• An interest in the ethics and safety of AI systems, and in AI policy.
• Actively leveraged AI tools to accelerate research pipelines or safety benchmarks by a measurable margin.

Pay

US: $174,000 - $253,000 (USD) + 15% bonus target + equity + benefits

Schedule

Full-time