Hatfield joined Nike in 1981, and in 1985 started working on shoe design. He realized that his architectural skills could be applied to shoes.[citation needed] Hatfield was also published for the architectural design of his Portland, Oregon home.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] 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). Hatfield designed the bat-boots for Michael Keaton to wear in Batman and Batman Returns. Hatfield's younger brother, Tobie Hatfield, joined Nike in 1990 as a senior engineer.
He also created the graphic design on the basketball court at the Matthew Knight Arena at the University of Oregon; the facility opened in 2011. In 2013, Hatfield worked on both Nike and Jordan brand concept car designs for Gran Turismo 6. 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. Hatfield was profiled in the first season of the Netflix documentary series Abstract: The Art of Design. In 2019, Hatfield received his own sneaker, titled the Nike React "Tinker Hatfield". The shoes were first presented to the public by him at SXSW.
Hatfield was the lead designer of Air Jordans III through XV, XX, and XX3. Additionally, Hatfield co-designed Air Jordans 2010 and XXX.

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