John Mulhausen can kick your butt at Super Mario Bros, and then tour across the country with his band.

The geek in question: John Mulhausen

The job title: SDET, Microsoft Game Studios

How long have you been with the company?
I started as a contractor in 2004, and then got hired on in 2005. I’ve been in my dream job with XBOX since July 2008.

Tell me about how you got this dream job.
I heard about a job with this central group, Microsoft Game Studios Test Org, that works with xbox developers, supporting every studio that Microsoft publishes. I studied my butt off and I had a lot of anxiety going into the interview. The day before I went to bed at like 9pm. I was like “I’m going to get 15 hours of sleep!” Getting this job was an obsession. Nothing but xbox games, and a new one all the time!

John demonstrating 'Atari Face' at age two.

And you got the job!
I got the offer in May of this year. Working this job is seriously the realization of a life-long dream. My parents tell stories of me being in the high chair, and being all fussy. But they could get me to eat if they cut a triangle out of a slice of baloney and told me it was Pac-Man baloney.

I started copying code to make games when I was 5 or 6, copying BASIC code from Analog Magazine doing things like changing the code so that if you got a high score it would say “Johnny Rules.”

So wait, tell me about the tshirt.
In 1990 Nintendo announced that they were having a world championship, and I’d just turned 11 and decided to go to the nearest competition, which was in Dallas.

The whole thing was totally like that Fred Savage movie, The Wizard. There was an MC announcing what you were doing: “John has taken the tunnel in World One, and he’s getting that coin.” I remember hitting Jump for the first time to start the game, and hearing the whole place reverberate with the Mario DOIIIIIIING!

John won this tshirt in 1990. Almost twenty years later, he still carries it with him everywhere. (Ok, not really.)

So you had 7 minutes to play Super Mario Brothers and get 50 coins, then you played Rad Racer and had to finish the first track, and then Tetris. It was like the triathlon of Nintendo gaming. I made the semi-finals and interviewed by the Dallas Morning News — oh my god, I felt so cool. And the tshirt was one of the things they gave to people who made it to the semi-finals.

It was a wild experience. I finished third in my age group — but I’ll take it, man. I got to shake hands with the president of Nintendo. It was a defining childhood experience.

Do you feel like those gamer triathlon skills are now being put into use in your xbox dream job?
There’s no way around just playing through a game and testing and seeing if something works. You can write automation to do so much, but automation can put the game in an awkward state that natural input wouldn’t put it in. Using hooks is always prone to objects not getting shut down and memory leaks. So, my job requires someone who is able to use their skills in a variety of different games to actually cut that path through the game. I think those years of practice actually helped me.

So, you’ve got your dream job in the game industry — but you’ve got this other dream job of being a working musician, right?
Yep. I’m in a band called Terrene. We worked with a local producer Phil Ek (The Shins, Built to Spill, Band of Horses) to put out a record last year, did national distribution and videos. Our video for “Unwelcome” won “Best Indie Music Video 2007” at Yahoo! Video Awards, and was shown on MTV2’s Subterranean and HBO’s Feedback. And then it came time to tour. I toured for five weeks across North America.

My two jobs sometimes collide — you can feel inauthentic in a situation that’s geared toward one world or the other. But for the most part they’ve complimented each other well. Microsoft was amenable to me taking time off — the five week tour was all paid vacation. And, I don’t know how to put this delicately, but having the money from a full time job really helps. It’s expensive to tour! It’s expensive to buy equipment.

I don’t do music in order to be rich and famous — I do it because I can’t help doing it. It’s a total money drain. But Microsoft works with me to accommodate my tour and scheduling. The flexibility with hours has been really good.

Some people think that the starving artist ethos is somehow necessary to be creative. But making music and destructive impulses don’t necessarily go hand in hand.

Right?! There’s the whole romanticized tortured, broke artist icon — and then if you go the other way you’re somehow a sell-out poseur.
People who subscribe to the idea of needing a level of irresponsibility to create are usually making excuses for themselves. Depending on something like poverty or instability to give you material to work with, or waiting for inspiration … If you depend on your own suffering to create, then I’m just not completely sure you know what you’re doing. Inspiration is for amateurs. Creativity demands a work ethic. Creativity is just the vision, and the work it takes to attain it.

DOIIIIING! Links, please

• John’s band Terrene
• Video for “Unwelcome,” by Terrene. (Directed by The Brothers Nee)
• Video for “Fifty-One,” by Terrene. (Directed by John)
• Terrene’s “The Indifferent Universe,” produced by John and Phil Ek
• AP article featuring interview with 11-year-old Nintendo Wiz John
• John on Facebook