NATHAN T. HATCH
https://nhatch.github.io ‚ Seattle, WA, USA ‚ nhatch2@uw.edu ‚ +1 970-297-8081

ROBOTIC SYSTEMS ENGINEERING EXPERIENCE
======================================

RACER Project, U. of Washington
Software Team Lead
Seattle, WA
September 2021 - present
Develop perception, planning, and control software for ~10 m/s autonomous navigation of a Polaris RZR in off-road terrain including dirt trails, steep hills, tall grass, bushes, trees, water, and rocks

Brainstorm and prioritize big projects that might improve autonomous performance (e.g. variable dt)
Design and implement features for local planning and control (e.g. attitude costs)
Design and implement tools for efficient development and field tests (e.g. testing on rosbag replay)
Curate regression test cases and tune parameters to pass the tests
Prepare software for weekly field tests (code review, simulation validation, writing field test plan)
Attend field tests, direct experiments, drive chase vehicle, and assist with recovery after accidents
Analyze field test results to identify issues and propose solutions (e.g. open-loop execution at waypoints)
Manage 10-person team (maintain task tracking system, weekly group meeting, and several 1-1s)
Recruit and interview team members and maintain onboarding materials
Explain technical progress to stakeholders, including UW PIs and DARPA program manager
Handle software-related logistics (e.g. data offload, security, shipping computing equipment)

SARA Project, U. of Washington
System Engineer
Seattle, WA
June 2019 - September 2021

Conducted weekly field experiments for perception, planning, and control of a Clearpath Warthog robot
(a.k.a. Argo J5 XTR) outfitted with cameras and an Ouster OS2 LIDAR sensor
Handled physical and electrical hardware integration for new sensors
Sped up the LIDAR processing pipeline to 10Hz to support 3m/s vehicle velocities

Husky Robotics Club, U. of Washington
Software Subsystem Lead
Seattle, WA
January 2020 - September 2021

Wrote software for teleoperation and autonomous control of a student-designed and -built Mars rover
Recruited team members and delegated tasks to prepare for the University Rover Challenge (URC)
Implemented a planar navigation simulator with A* search, and inverse kinematics for the rover arm
Teleoperated the rover during the 2021 virtual URC, in which we placed 3rd globally!

OTHER SOFTWARE ENGINEERING EXPERIENCE
=====================================

eSpark Learning
Full-stack software engineer
Chicago, IL
June 2014 - July 2017

Led the annual iOS app release, removing 300ms tap delay and rewriting the video uploader
Increased sales pipeline by 25% by integrating our product with Airwatch
Improved academic fidelity metric from 80% to 87% by refining our app deployment system
Implemented Apple's "Device Assignment" protocol, making our MDM first-to-market (solo project)
Conducted ~20 interviews and code challenge reviews for recruiting

Dept. Computer Science, University of Chicago
chiTCP developer
Chicago, IL
October 2013 - June 2014

Implemented a TCP-over-TCP daemon for use in Borja Sotomayor's networks class

Mission Street Manufacturing
Software intern
Santa Barbara, CA
June - August 2013

Developed prototype front- and back-end software for consumer-friendly 3D printing

EDUCATION
=========

University of Washington, Seattle
January 2020 - September 2021
M.S. in Computer Science & Engineering; Advisor: Dr. Byron Boots

ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS
=====================

N. Hatch and B. Boots. "The Value of Planning for Infinite-Horizon Model Predictive Control."
ICRA 2021. https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.02863.
A. Shaban, C. Cheng, N. Hatch, and B. Boots. "Truncated Back-Propagation for Bilevel Optimiza-
tion." AISTATS 2019. http://proceedings.mlr.press/v89/shaban19a.html.

TECHNICAL STRENGTHS
===================

Python, C++, ROS, Git, PyTorch, TorchScript