Hatfield joined Nike in 1981, and in 1985 started working on shoe design. He realized that his architectural skills could be applied to shoes. Hatfield was also published for the architectural design of his Portland, Oregon home. He claims to have designed the cross-trainer as a "multi-sport" shoe when he realized people at his Oregon gym brought various sneakers with them for diverse activities such as basketball, aerobics, weightlifting and jogging. In 1987, Tinker Hatfield designed the Air Max 1 Running Shoe after visiting the Centre Georges Pompidou; and in 1990 released the third in the Air Max line, the Air Max 90 (Air Max III at the time). In 2014, Hatfield indicated that Nike would unveil a shoe with power-lacing technology, as worn by Marty McFly in the 1989 film "Back to the Future Part II", which partially takes place in the year 2015.