Bethesda veteran with 20 years of experience and The Elder Scrolls lore expert has been unable to find a job for months

Kurt Kuhlmann, one of the key designers at Bethesda Game Studios and known among fans as the "lore master" of The Elder Scrolls, publicly announced he's looking for work. The industry veteran got caught up in layoffs back in July and still hasn't landed a new position.

Kuhlmann spent roughly two decades at Bethesda and had a hand in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion and The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. By his own account, he left the studio over its growing bureaucracy, along with broken promises from Todd Howard that he'd lead development on The Elder Scrolls 6.

After leaving Bethesda, he took a job as principal world designer at Lightspeed LA, a California studio working on the ambitious title Last Sentinel. This summer the team got hit with major layoffs, and Kuhlmann lost his role along with most of his colleagues.

He discussed his situation in a post on LinkedIn, where he also reached out to potential employers:

Along with most of the Last Sentinel team, I was laid off in July, so I am back on the job market. If you know of anyone looking for a senior/principal/lead designer, please let me know or pass them my information.

In the same post, Kuhlmann laid out his experience, which covers nearly every discipline of game design found in major RPGs.

I spent the majority of my career at Bethesda Game Studios (BGS), and I've done pretty much every design-related thing for BGS games – narrative design and writing, world-building, combat balance, character systems, minigames, crafting, gameplay scripting, etc.

He's currently prioritizing remote roles but says he's open to any opportunities that fit his skills and experience. Finding the right position in today's market has proven tough even for someone with his level of expertise.

Kuhlmann situation reflects the broader state of the industry right now. Layoffs keep hitting the market from every direction, from major corporations down to indie studios, and a resume full of impressive credits no longer guarantees job security.

One of the clearest examples is Microsoft, which in July kicked off the biggest restructuring in Xbox history, cutting 3,200 employees from the division. The wave swept up developers who had spent years working on the platform key franchises.

Fallout co-creator Tim Cain recently told new developers terrified of layoffs that expecting stability from making games is "wrong" to begin with. As he put it, art itself is inherently unstable, and the game industry is no exception.