Principal Virologist, Responsible Development and Innovation, DeepMind

About the Job

Artificial intelligence will be one of humanity’s most transformative inventions. At Google DeepMind, we are a pioneering AI lab with exceptional interdisciplinary teams focused on advancing AI development to solve complex global challenges and accelerate high-quality product innovation for billions of users. We use our technologies for widespread public benefit and scientific discovery, ensuring safety and ethics are always our highest priority.

Individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

Responsibilities

• Synthesize, "roll up," and clearly communicate complex technical risk data to senior stakeholders, C-suite executives, and policy leaders with clarity and authority.
• Integrate ongoing scientific community insights regarding biological pathogens to ensure our safety frameworks reflect real-world threat vectors.
• Shape Google DeepMind’s broader biosecurity mitigation strategies, ensuring safety guardrails protect against genuine misuse without bottlenecking legitimate scientific innovation.
• Partner closely with Research Scientists, Engineers, and ethics experts to embed biosecurity protocols directly into the model development lifecycle.
• Refine and directly execute advanced biology evaluations to pressure-test frontier AI models against biological threats.

Qualifications

Minimum qualifications:

• PhD in Virology or equivalent practical experience in post-doctoral, clinical, or industry experience.
• 15 years of experience working with high-consequence biological pathogens within a national security, defense, or biosecurity context.
• Experience translating scientific or threat data into summaries for senior leadership and non-technical decision-makers.
• Experience in wet-lab virology, working within BSL-3 or high-containment BSL-2 environments.
• Experience analyzing the challenges of dual-use research of concern (DURC), biological weapons frameworks, and the global stakeholder landscape.

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience designing novel science evaluations, red-teaming protocols, or threat-modeling frameworks for emerging technologies.
• Experience utilizing or evaluating Large Language Models (LLMs) or biological foundation models.
• Comfort with technical infrastructure, command-line tools, or basic coding elements to interface effectively with AI research engineers.
• Active engagement with ongoing national security or international biosecurity working groups.
• Interest in AI safety frameworks, tech policy, and the ethics of frontier technologies.